Lake of ice on mars........!

They have found a lake if ice on mars near the north pole This might be old news but its still very cool.... Looks like a good place for a mars base its in a 35 km wide crater that is 2km deep.... sheltered with a supply of water 8)... They say it can't be co2 lake or ice eather because it to warm and it all melted earler in the year.






Ice lake.....

large pic's and area around lake

I agree , this would be a great site for a Mars base having water so close on hand would be a huge advantage.I'm pretty confident when we do go to mars we'll find substanscial amounts of water locked in permafrost , underground aquafiers and crater lakes like this one.

holy moly, that is awesome. Outside of the "eye of god" picture the hubble took, that might be my next favorite image of anything in space. nice work !

here's the BBC article;
news.bbc.co.uk...


here's the "eye of god"

Let's also not forget the positive effect this will have on the future MHL (Martian Hockey League).

Go Cydonia Rovers! Woo Hoo!

makes you wonder what else they're going to find eventually. From every interview I've read or seen with the NASA project scientists they're just dieing to find any sign of life.

Paraphrasing one scientist:

"If we can prove that life exists(ed) on two planets within the same solar system, the concept of possible extra-terrestrial life is no longer a question if but how many hundreds of thousands of different types of life is out there in our universe" that's pretty close to what he said.

SPiderj

It looks like a level of a video game. This is an amazing discovery. Are we positive as to what type of chemical substance is making up the lake itself. Also, it doesn't look frozen, or is that just me....

I don't understand this line from the writes on the picture page linked:

......"The colours are very close to natural, but the vertical relief is exaggerated three times. " .........

What does "vertical relief is exaggerated" mean?

Anyone?

On a side note - I can't get the larger pics to load for me [3mb ADSL line] .......... I want my money back shadarlocoth, lol

Misfit

It could be water, but I think it may be more on the lines of dry ice. Anyways, it's an excellent find, I hope to find out what it really is soon.

Originally posted by Misfit
I don't understand this line from the writes on the picture page linked:

......"The colours are very close to natural, but the vertical relief is exaggerated three times. " .........

What does "vertical relief is exaggerated" mean?

Anyone?

On a side note - I can't get the larger pics to load for me [3mb ADSL line] .......... I want my money back shadarlocoth, lol

Misfit

makes things look 3 times taller then they really are....


as for dry ice it cant be because dry ice is CO2 and they already said it melted already sence its summer when it was taken there

I took a look at the larger pictures on the esa site. Wow! If there is life on Mars that's where to look.

Also, in the bigger pictures you can see some discoloration around the edge of the ice, very noticable around the "southern" edge. Now I'm a bit color blind but is that discoloration green? Could someone who is experienced at looking at photos of this type comment on the discoloration or at least could someone tell me that I'm wrong and it's not green?

Originally posted by Misfit
I don't understand this line from the writes on the picture page linked:

......"The colours are very close to natural, but the vertical relief is exaggerated three times. " .........

What does "vertical relief is exaggerated" mean?

Anyone?

Misfit

The satillite images are textured onto a 3d surface. The 3d surface is exaggerated so that it stands out more.

Originally posted by Vasilis Azoth
Also, in the bigger pictures you can see some discoloration around the edge of the ice, very noticable around the "southern" edge. Now I'm a bit color blind but is that discoloration green? Could someone who is experienced at looking at photos of this type comment on the discoloration or at least could someone tell me that I'm wrong and it's not green?

I do see some blotchy green bits, but I think that has more to do with the image compression. It doesn't look like it's really there.

It's not green, it's like a dark red colour. Probably we would find some microbial life probably still frozen in it. That lake must be very large by what it appears, it may be about 12km across.

Originally posted by Vasilis Azoth
I took a look at the larger pictures on the esa site. Wow! If there is life on Mars that's where to look.

Also, in the bigger pictures you can see some discoloration around the edge of the ice, very noticable around the "southern" edge. Now I'm a bit color blind but is that discoloration green? Could someone who is experienced at looking at photos of this type comment on the discoloration or at least could someone tell me that I'm wrong and it's not green?

nope mate, not green. just looks like some darker shades of blue. maybe waves?

interesting find, thanks shadarlocoth!

[edit on 29/7/2005 by Kitsunegari]

That's an excellent image - though it is a bit photoshoppy looking or
'airbrushed' imo - not that i'm saying it's fake, just retouched a bit

Nice idea if it works out to be useful. A nice place to go and re-fuel.

Actually, it's H20 and not CO2.

There's a pile of photos of "ice" from the poles taken by the ESA orbiter, all of which were frozen carbon dioxide (dry ice). This photo is not of dry ice, it's frozen water ice. How do I know? I went to the ESA website and read about it...


These images, taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, show a patch of water ice sitting on the floor of an unnamed crater near the Martian north pole.

I think these latest photos add to the evidence of frozen pack-ice buried under layers of dust and dirt as seen earlier in the year (Feb 23, 2005).


And, for the record, none of the images from the Mar Express website are "photoshopped" or "airbrushed" in the least. They are the final result fo combining all channels of raw data (red green blue radar) into one complete image. Click on any of the above images, or follow the links, to view the full sized 'originals' and show us where they're "air burshed".

This lake of ice is located at Mars' north pole, which is where NASA next Mars lander 'Phoenix' is going.

This is a very interesting discovery-but it leaves me with one question:
Why was this not shown on TV and printed in newspapers and science magazines?