New Pics of the Red Planet are not so Red?

Fri Sep 18, 2009 9:10 pm » by **Crazynutsx**

hmm this is weird what would be the point in Nasa showing pictures to be more red then they are ?

Fri Sep 18, 2009 9:12 pm » by **Lowsix**

Holy crap that long pic is amazing!

Fri Sep 18, 2009 10:42 pm » by **Vulcanic**

slushpup wrote:I recommend people go visit the site. Some real amazing images that are so detailed and with full clarity.

i been trying it's super laggy and won't load on my pc=( can anyone post up a few pictures?

Fri Sep 18, 2009 11:21 pm » by **Rizze**

Great photos Slush, through following your links.I came upon this one
http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/HiRISE/hirise_images/all_images/ESP_011765_1780/

You can zoom in, up to 50 meters from the surface......... amazing place.

Home page for this Site is

http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/HiRISE/hirise_images/

Click on any of the red or blue pixels and do your exploring. the red pixels are the newest images.

Will be over there all night exploring :mrgreen:

Fri Sep 18, 2009 11:47 pm » by **Captchaos**

Upload to Disclose.tv

Sat Sep 19, 2009 12:14 am » by **Pauldamo**

is all that blue in the long picture water,it looks like it,if it was a picture of earth.

Sat Sep 19, 2009 3:03 am » by **sawltydawg**

pauldamo wrote:is all that blue in the long picture water,it looks like it,if it was a picture of earth.

totally thats what i was thinking.

looks like coastline.

Sat Sep 19, 2009 5:32 am » by **Daemonfoe**

Same. If it's not water, then wtf is it?

Sat Sep 19, 2009 5:46 am » by **sawltydawg**

CO2 bro.

The uncovering of an apparent error in atmospheric models of Mars dating back more than three decades suggests that both of the permanently frozen polar caps are made mostly of water ice and contain very little frozen carbon dioxide.

The news is good, in a lukewarm sense, for biologists, who figure water is the key ingredient for any possible life on Mars. It falls short, however, of revealing actual liquid water, which is what even the hardiest known critters need to survive.

The news is rather dismal for "terraformers," who would use the Red Planet's carbon dioxide to engineer a greenhouse effect and turn the cold, dusty little world into a veritable oasis for venturous human colonists.

However it is viewed, the new research helps confirm several other recent studies that have fueled a growing suspicion that Mars contains vast quantities of frozen water.

False impression

Scientists have known since the 1970s that the northern cap of Mars is mostly water ice, but until recently indications were that the southern cap was predominantly if not entirely carbon dioxide, commonly referred to as dry ice. In its gaseous form, carbon dioxide is considered a greenhouse contributor, a substance that naturally helps make up the insulating blanket of atmosphere that keeps Earth cozy and livable.

Caltech planetary science professor Andy Ingersoll and his graduate student, Shane Byrne now say a false impression of Mars ice dates back to 1966, when the first spacecraft to visit the planet determined that its atmosphere was composed chiefly of carbon dioxide.

Researchers at the time figured the ice caps were carbon dioxide, too, and that they interacted with the atmosphere by evaporation and condensation. Subsequently, the Viking spacecraft found that the north polar cap contained water ice beneath a 3-foot (1-meter) sheet of dry ice, and that the upper layer tends to melt away each summer.

The belief persisted that the southern cap was all carbon dioxide.

New evidence is the pits

The seeds of theoretical change came about three years ago with images supplied by the Mars Global Surveyor.

Ingersoll and Byrne examined pictures that Surveyor took of circular pits in south polar ice. The depressions are each 26 feet deep (8 meters) and range in diameter from something akin to a typical sports stadium to more than a half-mile (1,000 meters). The consistent depth had been noted but not adequately explained.

The floors of the pits are flat, and the pits grow 3 to 10 feet (1-3 meters) wider each year as ice melts.

In a telephone interview, Byrne said he and Ingersoll started some time ago working on various computer models to figure out how the pits could widen but not get deeper. Their resulting hypothesis: At 26 feet down is a transition from dry ice to water ice, which would remain solid at much higher temperatures.

Just prior to publishing this new model, new infrared measurements from Odyssey provided "concrete evidence" for the idea, Byrne said, showing that spots in the polar cap corresponding to the floors of the pits are too warm to be made of dry ice and must, therefore, be frozen water.

The scientists conclude that a surface veneer of dry ice hides vast amounts of water ice at the south pole. The southern dry ice sheet is thicker -- corresponding to the depth of the pits -- than in the north and does not entirely disappear during summer.

The study builds on previous examinations of the strange and ubiquitous pits, dubbed "Swiss cheese" upon their discovery in 2000. The following year, another group of researchers suggested that the melting that is causing the pits to grow might indicate profound climate change is underway on Mars. This past December, a study hinted strongly at the south pole's water ice by noting the degree to which surface temperatures change from night to day.

(Separately, the Odyssey probe has also returned compelling evidence for huge stores of water ice at or near the Martian surface and away from the poles.)

Sat Sep 19, 2009 6:15 am » by **Hesop**

Blue Balls