MARS &
WATER Mars is the 4 th
planet from the sun next to earth and is about 6794 km in diameter. It is one of the easiest planet to spot in the night sky because of its reddish orange color. The Viking
probes which landed on Mars have shown the planet to be rusty Red in color. The Viking probes have photographed the whole planet from orbit. The Viking probes have even dropped the landers that has set down on the surface. They have sent back close uppictures and also reported about Martian weather.
Much of the
surface of Mars is almost consisting of flat plains which are covered with soil and strewn with rocks large and small. Massive rocks from the outer space have crashed into the surface in 2 places and carved out 2 great basins. The largest, called Hellas measures more than 1500 km across.
Elsewhere 3 huge volcanoes have created a vast highland region called the Tharsis ridge. But the highest point of a;; is the nearby volcano known as Olympus Mons ( Mount Olympus). It is
twice as high as twice the earth’speak that is Mt. Everest.
Small gulleys on Mars were carved by water recently and would be prime locations to look for
life according to NASA scientists monitoring the probes. There have been many studies of Martian gullies that concluded water was involved . But most of the features are ancient, or if they seem modern then there were questions about how the water could stay liquid long enough to do the carving.
Scientists know there is a lot of water ice on Mars, and they speculated that life on Mars, if there is any, could lurk just beneath the surface where ice melts in pockets. The new study suggest that water may still bubble to the surface of Mars now and then, flow for a short stretch, then boil away in the thin, cold air. The conclusion is based on the computer modeling of the atmosphere and how water could behave.
A lead researcher from NASA says the gulleys may be
sites of near surface water on present day Mars and should be considered as an astro-biological targets sites for exploration. The sites may represent location of relatively near surface liquid water, which can be assessed by crews drilling on the Red Planet. Any potential long term human presence on Mars would require a water source both for drinking and to be broken down into Hydrogen as fuel for return flights
***********************
More abstracts about the THE SPACE ATLAS