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SuperEgo
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Registered: 7/14/2005
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Climate Change on Mars?
| Quote From Source: | New images of Mars suggest the surface is more active than suspected and the planet could be going through climate change.
Photographs from Nasa's orbiting spacecraft Mars Global Surveyor show recently formed craters and gullies, reports the BBC.
The agency's scientists also say that deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near the planet's south pole have shrunk for three summers in a row.
| | Click source url to view entire story. |
Source URL: http://www.ananova.com/news/...enu=news.scienceanddiscovery
| Quote From Source: | New gullies that did not exist in mid-2002 have appeared on a Martian sand dune.
That's just one of the surprising discoveries that have resulted from the extended life of NASA's Mars Global Surveyor, which this month began its ninth year in orbit around Mars. Boulders tumbling down a Martian slope left tracks that weren't there two years ago. New impact craters formed since the 1970s suggest changes to age-estimating models. And for three Mars summers in a row, deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near Mars' south pole have shrunk from the previous year's size, suggesting a climate change in progress.
"Our prime mission ended in early 2001, but many of the most important findings have come since then, and even bigger ones might lie ahead," said Tom Thorpe, project manager for Mars Global Surveyor at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The orbiter is healthy and may be able to continue studying Mars for five to 10 more years, he said.
| | Click source url to view entire story. |
Source: NASA
Source URL: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/newsroom/20050920a.html
| Quote From Source: | Mars 'more active than suspected'
New images of Mars suggest the Red Planet's surface is more active than previously thought, the US space agency (Nasa) reports.
Photographs from Nasa's orbiting spacecraft Mars Global Surveyor show recently formed craters and gullies.
The agency's scientists also say that deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near the planet's south pole have shrunk for three summers in a row.
They say this is evidence to suggest climate change is in progress.
Mars rumble
The new gullies appear in an April 2005 image of a sand-dune slope. A previous shot from July 2002 had no trace of them.
| | Click source url to view entire story. |
Source: BBC
Source URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4266474.stm |
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posted on 9/21/2005 at 11:42
