Sunday, March 07, 2004
Water, water everywhere??
By now, most of you know that the Mars Rover, Spirit, found evidence of water than once existed on Mars by boring a hole in volcanic rock. According to scientists, evidence was found of small holes and mineral deposits (sulphate salts for example) left behind by water. Of course, the question to ask is where did all that water come/go? NASA scientists have a very intriguing and very probable answer.
The only reasonable answer is comets. Comets were formed farther out from the sun than Earth, but in such abundance that they also rained down in the early solar system. They came into the inner solar system as frozen water — giant snowballs — depositing vast amounts of liquid water on Earth and apparently on Mars too.
Because of Earth's distance from the sun, our planet's surface temperature remains, on average, between the freezing and boiling points of water. Moreover, Earth's atmosphere acts like a lid, trapping most of the moisture. Mars, on the other hand, is too far from the sun to stay warm and too small to gravitationally trap a dense enough atmosphere to bottle up what warmth it does have. The comet-fed oceans it likely had either escaped into space or ended up trapped in cold storage as permafrost.
The only reasonable answer is comets. Comets were formed farther out from the sun than Earth, but in such abundance that they also rained down in the early solar system. They came into the inner solar system as frozen water — giant snowballs — depositing vast amounts of liquid water on Earth and apparently on Mars too.
Because of Earth's distance from the sun, our planet's surface temperature remains, on average, between the freezing and boiling points of water. Moreover, Earth's atmosphere acts like a lid, trapping most of the moisture. Mars, on the other hand, is too far from the sun to stay warm and too small to gravitationally trap a dense enough atmosphere to bottle up what warmth it does have. The comet-fed oceans it likely had either escaped into space or ended up trapped in cold storage as permafrost.
