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#1 2004-03-26 06:42:30

Palomar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: Spirals in Mars Ice Caps Explained

[http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/m … 40325.html]Click

*This doesn't have anything to do with the rovers, so I'm creating a different thread for it.  This is spectacular:

"The tilted planet causes ice on one side of a crack to heat and vaporize, deepening and widening the crack. Then the water vapor hits the shady, colder side of the growing canyon and refreezes.

Eventually, chasms more than a half-mile (1 kilometer) deep developed, and they cover hundreds of miles of the polar regions. But only on Mars, it seems.

Characteristics unique to the red planet -- its thin atmosphere, chilly climate and specific planetary tilt -- make it the only known place in the solar system where the ice spirals occur."

*Be sure to check out the "simulation generated patterns" image towards the bottom of the article.  It reminds me of Celtic knotwork.

--Cindy


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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