* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

Mars - more water

Blobrana · L

Martian "Bomb Sag" a Clue to Wetter Times

Bombs are a term for rocks ejected from volcanic eruptions, and a sag is the crater thats formed when said rocks impact the ground. A team of researchers led by Michael Manga from the University of California, Berkeley, used this photographic evidence to recreate what the conditions of Mars' air and soil may have been like during the time of the bomb sag's formation.
Read more

Blobrana · L

NASA Mars Rover Finds Mineral Vein Deposited by Water

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has found bright veins of a mineral, apparently gypsum, deposited by water. Analysis of the vein will help improve understanding of the history of wet environments on Mars.
The latest findings by Opportunity were presented Wednesday at the American Geophysical Union's conference in San Francisco.
Read more

Blobrana · L

Liquid flowing water discovered on Mars.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

New evidence of liquid water on Mars.

Blobrana · L

Dark streaks guide search for life on Mars

The story of water on Mars seems to be getting wetter, saltier and altogether more juicy.
NASA scientists have found evidence for liquid brines near the planet's surface that might provide a habitable zone for microbes today. If the discovery holds, it should guide future missions to Mars in the quest to find out whether the red planet can support life.
Read more

Blobrana · L

NASA Spacecraft Data Suggest Water Flowing on Mars

Observations from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have revealed possible flowing water during the warmest months on Mars.
Dark, finger-like features appear and extend down some Martian slopes during late spring through summer, fade in winter, and return during the next spring. Repeated observations have tracked the seasonal changes in these recurring features on several steep slopes in the middle latitudes of Mars' southern hemisphere.
Some aspects of the observations still puzzle researchers, but flows of liquid brine fit the features' characteristics better than alternate hypotheses. Saltiness lowers the freezing temperature of water. Sites with active flows get warm enough, even in the shallow subsurface, to sustain liquid water that is about as salty as Earth's oceans, while pure water would freeze at the observed temperatures.
Read more

Blobrana · L

Snowstorms on Mars may dwarf those on Earth

Snowstorms more violent than any on Earth may have hit Mars - and could occasionally strike again, despite its extremely dry climate.
No rain or snowstorms have ever been observed on Mars, which has been mostly cold and dry for about 3.5 billion years. But mineral evidence suggests short-lived lakes have formed intermittently on the planet, sometimes inside craters. Lakes may form when meteorite impacts heat ice in the crust or when underground reservoirs of water kept liquid by geothermal heat leak onto the surface.
Read more

Blobrana · L

Title: Water ice in the dark dune spots of Richardson crater on Mars
Authors: A. Kereszturi, M. Vincendon, F. Schmidt

In this study we assess the presence, nature and properties of ices - in particular water ice - that occur within these spots using HIRISE and CRISM observations, as well as the LMD Global Climate Model. Our studies focus on Richardson crater (72°S, 179°E) and cover southern spring and summer (LS 175° - 17 341°. Three units have been identified of these spots: dark core, gray ring and bright halo. Each unit show characteristic changes as the season progress. In winter, the whole area is covered by CO2 ice with H2O ice contamination. Dark spots form during late winter and early spring. During spring, the dark spots are located in a 10 cm thick depression compared to the surrounding bright ice-rich layer. They are spectrally characterized by weak CO2 ice signatures that probably result from spatial mixing of CO2 ice rich and ice free regions within pixels, and from mixing of surface signatures due to aerosols scattering. The bright halo shaped by winds shows stronger CO2 absorptions than the average ice covered terrain, which is consistent with a formation process involving CO2 re-condensation. According to spectral, morphological and modelling considerations, the grey ring is composed of a thin layer of a few tens of {\mu}m of water ice. Two sources/processes could participate to the enrichment of water ice in the grey ring unit: (i) water ice condensation at the surface in early fall (prior to the condensation of a CO2 rich winter layer) or during winter time (due to cold trapping of the CO2 layer); (ii) ejection of dust grains surrounded by water ice by the geyser activity responsible for the dark spot. In any case, water ice remains longer in the grey ring unit after the complete sublimation of the CO2. Finally, we also looked for liquid water in the near-IR CRISM spectra using linear unmixing modelling but found no conclusive evidence for it.

Read more (1119kb, PDF)

Blobrana · L

Data from NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander suggest liquid water has interacted with the Martian surface throughout the planet's history and into modern times. The research also provides new evidence that volcanic activity has persisted on the Red Planet into geologically recent times, several million years ago.
Read more

Blobrana · L

DLR investigates the existence of liquid salt solutions on Mars

Is it possible that there are salt solutions on Mars that remain liquid despite the extremely low temperatures - a class of fluids known as cryobrines? Research findings at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) have shown that this is a theoretical possibility. Experiments and modelling have indicated that the required conditions exist, especially during the Martian northern summer at higher latitudes. Prof. Diedrich Möhlmann of the DLR Institute of Planetary Research presented these initial findings on Friday 23 July and Saturday 24 July 2010 at the international COSPAR (Committee on Space Research) 2010 conference in Bremen.
Read more