The European Space Agency has released news that they may have found an active glacier on Mars!
This picture shows the possible glacier taken by the Mars Express orbiter. It sure looks like one! It’s located in Deuteronilus Mensae, which is in the moderate northern Martian latitude. The feature has not been confirmed as a glacier, but it does show ridging like a glacier, and there appears to be water ice on the ridges as you’d expect to see on a glacier. Followup observations will be made to see if they can find features of water in the spectrum of the area.
Old glaciers have been found on Mars, but this one may be far younger, only thousands of years old. It’s also not clear that, if this is a glacier, where the water ice is coming from. Some say it wells up from underground, and others say it comes from snow.
This is very cool news. I hope it pans out; once again it shows us that Mars is not just a bright red dot in the sky. It’s a place, a location, a world we can — and do — visit.
Hat tip to BABloggee Rav Winston.
December 19th, 2007 at 11:47 am
Do I interpret this rightly to mean that this could be an excellent potential landing site with massive amounts of water readily available (just add heat)?
December 19th, 2007 at 11:50 am
I assume that if true this would make a very strong case for the presence of liquid water.
December 19th, 2007 at 11:54 am
What is that feature to the bottom right of the picture. It appears to be a channel of some type. This would be really cool, and greatly enhance the possibility of discovering microbial life. Also, I agree with Maugrim, an excellent potential landing site!
December 19th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
Which would be preferable: water from underground or from snow? I mean, if you could only have one.
December 19th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Don’t let Al Gore see this glacier.
December 19th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
It just looks like giant worms made of glass to me.
December 19th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Underground, of course. That would indicate there are large reserves of water below the surface and a heat source to keep that water in liquid form. The holy grail of Martian exploration would be to find some form of life there, and anything that makes that more likely is certainly of interest.
Snow… not so much.
December 19th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Every time we turn around Mars dishes up a new surprise.
I can hardly wait until the Phoenix Lander reaches Mars and the Mars Science Lab gets off the launch pad.
December 19th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
Looks like a face to me! I hope this image works!
[URL=http://imagesocket.com/view/marsexpress_glacier720.jpg][IMG]http://content.imagesocket.com/thumbs/marsexpress_glacier720.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
December 19th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
I’d like to get a real expert opinion on this. Does anyone have Richard Hoagland’s phone number?
December 19th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
> What is that feature to the bottom right of the picture.
Assuming the picture to be oriented so the light is coming from the upper-right, it looks like it’s coming out of the ground and so wouldn’t be a channel. I suppose what we’d need to tell properly is a topo map so we know if it’s above-background height (a hill) or below-background height (a channel).
December 19th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
I agree, this is a face on Mars. It looks like a punchdrunk boxer.
December 19th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
I am not so sure that I would call it a glacier yet. It sure looks interesting. I would love to see what the spectrum says. It sure looks frozen, what other materials freeze at the temperatures at this latitude? Are there earlier pictures of this feature? Has it changed? If it is young it may be active is some way. It is very interesting, to say the least. How long will that great orbiting camera be in orbit? I was curious if we could get pictures over time, if we do not already have some. If it is water ice, then something is feeding it. That would be very interesting. With a source of water, a long stay would be very feasible. Not to mention a fuel source for the return trip. It kind of makes you want to land there as soon as possible, I am very curious. Someone build me a rocket! I would be happy to send data back if I survive.
December 19th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
@Centipede:
The light’s coming from the upper right of the picture? Forgive me but it appears to me to be coming from the left of the shot. Which would make the prominent feature in the lower right of the photo appear to indeed be a channel of some sort. Hard to tell if it runs into the main area in the middle of the shot or out of that area though. A topo-map of the area would be very handy. I’m no exo-geologist, but that’s what it apears to be to me.
Regardless though, as other posters have stated, a water ice glacier on the surface of Mars would be a titanic find.
December 19th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
I’m a bit confused by the lighting as well. Is the light coming from the left of the picture? If so, this makes the formation flowing from top to bottom of the picture look like a depression. When I think glacier, I think of something elevated above the landscape. So is this:
1. A traditional glacier elevated above the landscape but with odd lighting
2. The path left by a glacier, and thus a depression
3. A gross misunderstanding on my part
4. Glass cephalopod (worms are sooo passe)
December 19th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
Thanks Centipede. It’s interesting, because as I glanced at it again, it does look like an above ground feature…. at least for a second it did anyway!
December 19th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
This is an ASTOUNDING discovery, one which, incidently, I predicted with my Hyperdimensional Physics model. Now, here is another ASTOUNDING fact. Prepare to be amazed and enlightened. Where is this object located? Need I say it? 19.5 degrees North! Again, I say, 19.5 degrees North! We all know what that means. There is CLEARLY an AMAZING connection between this feature, and I want to re-iterate here, I don’t think this is a NATURAL feature, this is so OBVIOUSLY an ASTOUNDING work of intelligent beings that lived on Mars in the distant past. Now why is 19.5 degrees important? Because of the connection between this feature and the Great Pyramid of Giza. If we were to draw a line, now remember, HYPERDIMENSIONAL PHYSICS, between this feature, the Tholus, and Face at Cydonia, and EXTRAPOLATE that to the Great Pyramid at Giza, go back to Mars, to the Pyramid at Cydonia, we find an ASTOUNDING amount of information. I will get into detail about what our research has uncovered on tomorrow night’s Coast to Coast AM with George Noory. You don’t want to miss this show, because we are going to BLOW the lid off of what NASA does NOT want you to know.
?
December 19th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
Oh good grief. If that isn’t a joke comment by someone (I find it hard to believe that a real lunatic, attention-starved charlatan wouldn’t link their website to their name at the top. I do!) then th eneighbourhood just went downhill really fast.
December 19th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
rofl @ the Hoagland comment. Nicely done.
I can’t get enough of these terrestrial pictures, they make Mars (and other places) so much more ‘real’ to me. My favorites are still of Titan and what was thought to be a methane sea.
December 19th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
Silly String Theory:
Thank you for the great reminder. Folks, this website will ABSOLUTELY ASTOUND you! Find out what NASA (and I assume the BA, because he is in Cahoots with the freemasons at NASA) does not want you to know, right here:
lostmoon.com
enterprisemission.com
December 19th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
I know this is fairly off topic, but does anyone else find humor in the scientist’s name being Dr. Neukum?
December 19th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
Is his first name Duke, by any chance?
December 19th, 2007 at 10:42 pm
Interestingly enough, I was just thinking the feature looked like an upside down mushroom cloud.
December 20th, 2007 at 4:17 am
“I’m a bit confused by the lighting as well.”
As far as orienting the lighting of a picture, a lot of times there are distinguishing landmarks that can be used. If you would notice, there are a number of craters in the image, including one with a slightly elevated edge. With craters, you will typically see a a shadow formed by the crater wall on the side the light is coming from and a brighter area where the light hits the opposite crater wall. That would indicate that the sunlight is coming from the lower left. If that were the case, the main structure in the image would be in a basin.
December 20th, 2007 at 7:47 am
Gee, who’d a thunk it? Dick as a satirist,,,and here I thought he was a serious wanker.
How long before we have an analyses of H2O vapor?
What a great place to land a bio probe.
“Ack! The humans are coming, with their giant probes,,,”
Gary 7
December 20th, 2007 at 10:05 am
Gary, “Humans are coming with their giant probes”. HA! It’s payback time for all the times they have taken us out of our bedrooms in the middle of the night and subjected us to their filthy disgusting probes!
December 21st, 2007 at 11:05 am
Darn. I didn’t see the crater… well, now it does look like a channel. Mea culpa.