And look how straight the trail of green slime from the giant worm is!

That’s not a worm trail. It’s a Martian cylinder contrail!

QUICK! EVERYONE TO THE UNDERGROUND CITY! START DIGGING!

Yes, and that would likely prompt both 24/7 reception systems and a planetary system wide internet. I’m all for it.

Nah, Mars is pretty normal, it’s Earth that’s weird (i.e. unusual).

Mars: << 1 atm pressure, planetwide circulation (dust storms), precipitation (snow), liquids (brines).

Earth/Titan: ~ 1 atm pressure, planetwide circulation (zonal winds), precipitation (rain _and_ fog), liquids (water/methane).

Seems to me Mars is the odd man out.

The HiRISE site is no longer loading for me. Does this mean that Bad Astronomy’s reader base is so large it can kill a server? Or does it indicate REALLY poor traffic management by the HiRISE folks?

edit: I’m getting the site to load now. I wonder if the size of the high resolution photos are contributing to the “Server too busy” message. Methinks someone needs to upgrade their servers’ capabilities.

To me, that image looks like a herd of wildebeast in the Kalahari during dry season.

Too much Nova, I guess.

What’s still unclear is how enduring and extensive the liquid water was in the ancient past, whether features that have changed in recent times are due to liquid water eruptions from underground, and possibly whether liquid water is periodically stable and present in the martian arctic during high-obliquity.

http://ida.wr.usgs.gov/fullres/divided/m08046/m0804688a.jpg

Have to say, it does Look like a tree!

#17, FC,
When man goes to Mars, will he build bars on Mars, and will he call them Mars Bars?

On a good day…maybe twenty bars…oh, we’re not talking about the candy?

It’s even better! The scientists who first studied this area gave the name “Aztec City” to it, because the angular mesas looked sort of like an aerial view of old ruins. Errrr….that is, they absent-mindedly gave away their secret discovery of a Mars-Aztec connection.

Great, just great. That means that Mars is also doomed in 2012.

It’s even better! The scientists who first studied this area gave the name “Aztec City” to it, because the angular mesas looked sort of like an aerial view of old ruins. Errrr….that is, they absent-mindedly gave away their secret discovery of a Mars-Aztec connection. PROVE IT ISN’T SO!!!!!

Is if Mars has “ice caps” doesn’t that mean it has water? Or are the ice caps made of something else?
______________

We’ve known for a long time that Mars has water ice and water vapor, and lots of it. There’s enough water in the south ice cap to cover the planet in 11 meters of water if it all melted.

The controversy is whether there was ever liquid water on Mars. There has been some evidence found by the rovers and orbiters of the possibilty of liquid water having existed on Mars at one time, but it hasn’t been conclusive.

The bulk of the ice on the polar caps is carbon dioxide (“dry” ice).

Why all the controversy about whether there is/was water on mars if we know it has ice caps? Doesn’t that kind of settle the debate?

You’re off by a factor of ten, aren’t you? The hirise site gives the scale of this image as about half a meter per pixel, so the wee little dots are about 2-3 meters across, aren’t they?

And if I remember correctly, they aren’t craters, but patches of bedrock showing through the ice and frost.