Mars Express Pictures Action Of Glaciers

[zavvy]

<b>Mars Express Pictures Action Of Glaciers</b><br /><br />LINK<br /><br />The Mars Express spacecraft has returned stunning images of mountains and valleys that show signs of past volcanic activity, and suggest that glaciers once shaped the red planet's surface.<br /><br />Meanwhile, the craft's former travelling companion, the lander Beagle 2, is still making waves despite having made no contact with its handlers since separating from its mother ship on 19 December 2003.<br /><br />The pictures from Mars Express show the western end of the Valles Marineris canyon system, which stretches for about 4,000 kilometres close to the martian equator.<br /><br />In places, the main canyon is 10 kilometres deep, more than six times as deep as the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Mars Express's High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) has now photographed this area in more detail than ever before, picking out features as small as 50 metres across.<br /><br />"The images are showing us a lot more evidence for recent water activity, and probably recent ice deposits, than I'd previously thought," says John Murray, one of the HRSC team members based at the earth sciences department at the Open University, Milton Keynes, UK.<br /><br />Larger features, such as U-shaped valleys punctuated by hillocks of rubble, indicate that glaciers may once have gouged their way through the canyons, he adds.<br /><br />The pictures also show that the canyon floors are covered in dark, layered material, which could be volcanic. Because the HRSC's stereovision provides three-dimensional pictures, geologists can analyse these exposed rock formations to unpick how the geology of the planet has changed over time. Mars may have been volcanically active very recently, says Murray, perhaps as little as a million years ago.<br /><br />Although the HRSC is producing a continuous stream of data from the red planet, one of Mars Express's most useful t

 

[flynn]

<font color="yellow">"Colin Pillinger, the space scientist from the Open University who was the driving force behind Beagle 2, hasn't given up on his mission either. On November 3, he announced the team's plans for a new lander that could fly on an ESA mission in 2009 to look for life on Mars. "</font><br /><br /><br />I'd like to see Collin Pillenger take a step back on this one, he has attracted a lot of critism from all quarters over the project. To get serious support someone else will have to figurehead another shot at Beagle. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#800080">"All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring" - <strong>Chuck Palahniuk</strong>.</font> </div>

 

[zavvy]

<font color="yellow">I'd like to see Collin Pillenger take a step back on this one, he has attracted a lot of critism from all quarters over the project.</font><br /><br />I think you're right, but it sounds like he's determined to be part of it according to this article.... <img src="/images/icons/crazy.gif" />

 

[chew_on_this]

Didn't Polarwander get a lot of flack suggesting glaciers on Mars?

 

[alexblackwell]

<i>Didn't Polarwander get a lot of flack suggesting glaciers on Mars?</i><br /><br />No, especially since the idea of glacial cycles on Mars is nothing new. In fact, Jeff Kargel has recently published an entire book on this subject.<br /><br />I suspect Polarwander catches "a lot of fl[ak]" because of his hand-waving assertions that he has "proven" the existence of wandering Martian polar caps. Aside from his posts here, I'm still waiting for him to publish some sort of analysis. I'm sorry, but playing with images in Photoshop falls far short of "proof."