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Science Huge buried glaciers of water ice found on Mars
Science Huge buried glaciers of water ice found on Mars | Huge buried glaciers of water ice found on Mars |
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| by William Atkins | |
| Friday, 21 November 2008 | |
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Page 3 of 3 Ali Safaeinili, a shallow radar instruments team member with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, stated, “These results are the smoking gun pointing to the presence of large amounts of water ice at these latitudes.” NASA concludes its November 20th article with, “The rocky debris blanket topping the glaciers apparently has protected the ice from vaporizing, which would happen if it were exposed to the atmosphere at these latitudes.” James W. Head (Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island) stated within the NASA article “A key question is, how did the ice get there in the first place?" He answered himself with the statement, “The tilt of Mars' spin axis sometimes gets much greater than it is now. Climate modeling tells us ice sheets could cover mid-latitude regions of Mars during those high-tilt periods. The buried glaciers make sense as preserved fragments from an ice age millions of years ago." He compared the discovery on Mars with Earth when Dr. Head stated, "On Earth, such buried glacial ice in Antarctica preserves the record of traces of ancient organisms and past climate history." Consequently, such water-ice glaciers could hold the secret of Mars past. Did living organisms live on Mars in the past? We may soon find out! For the future, the presence of such huge deposits of water-ice at these mid-latitude locations makes it much easier to explore Mars. |
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