Avalanche on Mars!

Avalanche on Mars!

www.cnn.com

A robotic spacecraft circling Mars has snapped the first image of a series of active avalanches near the planet's north pole, scientists said Monday.

The image, taken last month, reveals at least four avalanches of fine ice and dust breaking off from a steep cliff and settling on the slope below. The cascade kicked up massive debris clouds, with some measuring more than 590 feet across.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Interesting... Their not sure what caused the avalanche's nor if these are a common occurance on Mars in the spring time.

Global Warming on Mars anyone?


p.s. not sure where this thread would fit on the forums, so if its in the wrong spot please let me know!

www.cnn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by tevis69

Global Warming on Mars anyone?

www.etsimo.uniovi.es...


mars is 95% CO2 - so you could say its allready a greenhouse - but there has been a 0.65% temp increase over the 25 years 1975>2000 which is alot more than earth

Martian eccentricity is about 0.1 - over 5 times larger than Earth's, so the insolation (INcoming SOLar radiATION) variation over the orbit is substantial, and contributes significantly more to seasonality than on the Earth, although Mars's obliquity (the angle of its spin axis to the orbital plane) still dominates the seasons. The alignment of obliquity and eccentricity due to precession is a much stronger effect than for the Earth, leading to "great" summers and winters on time scales of tens of thousands of years (the precessional period is 170,000 years). Since Mars has no oceans and a thin atmosphere, the thermal inertia is low, and Martian climate is easily perturbed by external influences, including solar variations. However, solar irradiance is now well measured by satellite and has been declining slightly over the last few years as it moves towards a solar minimum.

www.realclimate.org...

i would say , that this is normal

[edit on 4/3/08 by Harlequin]