Mars is getting warmer

RacerX_GTO · Sep 22, 2005

Mars Getting Warmer, Orbiter data suggests

Long-running observations by a NASA spacecraft orbiting Mars are revealing subtle signs of seismic activity on the Red Planet and possibly a slow warming trend, scientists said Tuesday.

Circling since September 1997, Global Surveyor is the oldest of five spacecraft four American and one European observing Mars from orbit for indications that the cold, barren planet was or is habitable.

Global Surveyor's early identification of a surface mineral that forms in water on Earth prompted NASA to select Mars' dust-covered Meridiani Planum as the landing site for the Opportunity robotic rover early last year.

The mechanical geologist soon found strong evidence of an ancient marshy shoreline.

Repeat imagery of specific locales taken by Global Surveyor's camera that were displayed at a telephone news briefing Tuesday revealed Mars may share similarities with a more geologically active Earth in other ways.

"These images reveal a dynamic surface that is of the type we might experience while hiking on the Earth," said Jack Mustard, a Brown University planetary geologist. "The difference is, this is not the Earth. This is Mars."

The imagery revealed a major rock slide along a crater wall involving a dozen large boulders between November 2003 and December 2004.

Though the rock slide could have been triggered by high winds or reverberations from a meteor impact, the most plausible explanation may be a "Mars quake" because the large boulders were dislodged from different locations on the crater wall, said San Diego researcher Mike Malin, who manages the camera system.

The observations also showed an annual 10-foot erosion in the snow cap at the South Pole.

The cap is made of frozen carbon dioxide, the chief ingredient of the Martian atmos- phere.

"The significance is that Mars is experiencing climate change, or has experienced climate change, because the present atmospheric conditions are not conducive to the formation of all that frozen carbon dioxide," Malin said. "Sometime in the distant past, Mars was colder. Subsequent to that, it has warmed, and we are seeing the earlier deposits erode away."

The scientists said the causes and time frame of the Martian climate change are not clear.
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RacerX_GTO · Sep 22, 2005

A scientific journal has the same data found earlier

http://www.rednova.com/news/space/16813/the_south_polar_ice_cap_of_mars_is_melting/

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Mars is getting warmer

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