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February 22, 2005

Wet Mars

This is cool:

A European space probe has found evidence for large blocks of water ice just beneath the Martian surface in relatively warm conditions near the equator.

The newfound pack ice, just five degrees from the equator, might have collected millions of years ago when volcanic tempests and water floods brought it down from nearby areas in the Elysium region of the planet, researchers say. Scars to the landscape serve as evidence of those past floods.

“The fact that there have been warm and wet places beneath the surface of Mars since before life began on Earth, and that some are probably still there, means that there is a possibility that primitive micro-organisms survive on Mars today," study co-leader John Murray at the Open University in the UK said in today's statement. "This mission has changed many of my long-held opinions about Mars – we now have to go there and check it out."

Posted by bubba138 at February 22, 2005 11:00 AM