Re: strong signal of life on Mars has been detected! -- AMIGA Astronomy

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Subject: Re: strong signal of life on Mars has been detected!

Author:
Blobrana

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Date Posted: 14:58:24 02/02/05 Wed
In reply to: Blobrana 's message, "Re: strong signal of life on Mars has been detected!" on 06:25:43 03/29/04 Mon

As an update:
New images from Mars Express show evidence of recent volcanic and glacial activity on Mars, consistent with what we know from Martian meteorites and previous evaluations of the planet's internal heat production and climate.
Scientists combined the time-honoured method of counting craters to estimate the age of planetary surfaces with brand new high-resolution, stereo images of Mars to reassess the planet's recent volcanic and glacial activity.
Gerhard Neukum (Freie Universit�t, Berlin, Germany) and colleagues from Germany, United States, Russia, and the United Kingdom studied calderas on five major volcanoes and the shield of Olympus Mons with the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on the European Space Agency's Mars Express Spacecraft to try to determine the duration of geologic activity more precisely than had ever been done before. Previous age determinations using the crater counting technique have been limited by poorer resolution or by the small areas imaged.

Their work confirms that the Tharsis and Elysium regions were volcanically active over billions of years, that caldera eruptions were episodic but were especially numerous 100 to 200 million years ago, and that the most recent lava flows on Mars may be as young as two million years. Their findings are consistent with previous
studies of Mars Global Surveyor data as well as Martian shergottite meteorites that suggest intermittent magmatism from 165 to about 500 million years ago.

Neukum and co-authors also report the most recent phase of glacial activity on Olympus Mons was within the past four million years. So recent are these events in geologic time that the researchers speculate high-altitude, insulted ice deposits may be
present on Olympus Mons even now and that volcanoes might still be active.

<a rel=nofollow target=_blank href="http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/blobrana/news/marsmethane.html">http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/blobrana/news/marsmethane.html</a>

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