VERY Wet Mars?

Siegfried · 2005-10-09 00:17:26

I'm not sure if there is already a thread for this, but I'm going to post one anyway.

In A Traveller's Guide to Mars by W. K. Hartmann, there is one chapter (indirectly) about Martian water-ice.
In short, he says that many super-optomistic (though maybe correct) scientists beleive that Mars may, in fact, hold enough water-ice in three forms (will get into those later) to form a global ocean of ten meters deep. By "global" they mean that the hypothetical Martian ocean would be ten meters deep planetwide IF the planet was a perfect, smooth sphere.
The water could be:
--Hidden in the polar ice caps.
--Locked in mollecular form in minerals in lower regolith.
--In an underground layer of frozen ice. (This would probably contain the greatest quantity.)
What do you think? It sounds too optomistic even for me, but I'd be happy with a 2-meter global ocean.

Dook · 2005-10-09 06:45:25

Instruments and the recent ESA picture have detected (water) ice on mars, most of it is at the south pole.

The predictions say that the entire northern hemisphere would be an ocean as well as the huge Hellas basin in the southern hemisphere.

http://science.msfc.nasa.gov/headlines/ … jun_1m.htm

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/28may%5Fmarsice.htm[/img]

Siegfried · 2005-10-09 15:08:31

Amazing, isn't it? Vastistas Borealis, then Oceanus Borealis...Wow...

Almir · 2005-10-10 08:48:45

"The total pore space in the regolith has been estimated to be sufficient to contain ice equivalent to a global water layer 0.5 to 1.5 km deep."
www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~meech/a734/papers/boynton_2002.pdf

“Some people think it could be hundreds of meters to a kilometer, but really nobody knows.”
http://www.geotimes.org/july02/NN_mars.html

Siegfried · 2005-10-10 20:36:13

What! :shock:
That is excellent! Great! But we don't want too much, do we?

Oh, by the way, I ran across a terraforming site that had a link to a downloadable program. It's so cool. I can now flood Mars. It's interesting watching Olympus Mons disapearing under water from a virtual globe of the planet. (Doesn't win anything on graphics, though.)

Dook · 2005-10-10 20:46:03

Space in the regolith for .5 to 1.5 km deep water on mars does not mean that space is full of ice.

Ziggy can you post a link to that terraforming site?

Siegfried · 2005-10-10 21:35:55

Sure thing! I'll also post a link to the program site, too.
Terraforming Information Pages
Catalin Vasile's Mars Viewer[/url]

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#1 2005-10-09 00:17:26

Re: VERY Wet Mars?

#2 2005-10-09 06:45:25

Re: VERY Wet Mars?

#3 2005-10-09 15:08:31

Re: VERY Wet Mars?

#4 2005-10-10 08:48:45

Re: VERY Wet Mars?

#5 2005-10-10 20:36:13

Re: VERY Wet Mars?

#6 2005-10-10 20:46:03

Re: VERY Wet Mars?

#7 2005-10-10 21:35:55

Re: VERY Wet Mars?

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