DescentBB

The European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter is sending back interesting colored images. The question in this image...does the blue reflect water or growth...or is it a color filter problem.

click me

could be a multi-layered image with a thermal overlay to enhance the rift...ya think?

More like...

Another stunt from Matrox showing bumpmapped textures?

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Arial" size="3">Originally posted by Poozilla:
could be a multi-layered image with a thermal overlay to enhance the rift...ya think?</font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Not sure, the same thing crops up in this photo:

click me

I think we just discovered where Cheneyburton has been sending all it's industrial waste.

LOL @ Topher!

I think the color issue is moot. There's a very good explanation about the MER and MGS color images.... but I forgot where I read it. Google's your friend.

I think you're reading into it more then need be. It just looks like a deep valley where the bottom can't be seen from where / and the settings the photo was taken. Although you can see a "blue" color, for the most part I think it is shadow from the cliffs on both sides. The blue could be something added in by the picture taking process that isn't actually there.

It does look a lot like water though, I'll give it that, but we won't actually know until we get there in person

Cool... & Lol@Topher

Any articles on the pix?

it doesn't really look like water, but the way the sides of the cannons are depressed it looks like a river.

If Blue shows depth, even then it looks like a river. If the water was flowing from lower right to upper left, take a look at the indentations left behind the outcropping in the middle and the rock in the upper left.

I didn't think the air pressure on Mars was enough to keep water on the planet.

Umm, water isn't blue. It's translucent. Water only appears blue on earth because it reflects the color of the sky. Therefore, one would assume that water on mars would be red, yes?

Meathead is right, there isn't enough atmospheric pressure on Mars for liquid water. And it's also too cold to be liquid

*smacks head* duhhhhhhhhh...

Actually, recent thinking says liquid water might be found on the surface if enough salts are dissolved in it. A super-saturated saltwater solution won't freeze solid until it hits about -45 C. What kind of life might exist in such water is unknown.

That's why we're exploring!

Not necassarily Scorch, there could be something on Mars that we don't know about that is making it appear blue. It might be another liquid altogether (If it is liquid in the first place). Which, I don't believe that it is at all.

It is just shadow and that is the color that came back from the orbiter. Since it belongs to ESA I don't doubt they fubar'd something .

athmospheric pressure, yeah right.
ever heard of gravity? (hint: holds both water and gas back from flowing into space. as well as landed and/or crashed probes, rocks etc.)

Without the right atmospheric pressure the water would vaporize into a gas or freeze.

bwhaha

Try thinking along blue/green algae. Moisture in ground could give it enough to grow.

and a bunch of killer bugs will pop out of the algae and one guy will save his buddy by blowing himself and all of the killer bugs up?

Stupidest movie I *ever* saw

No Nitrofox. Armageddon was like a slap in the face to anyone who had even quarter of a Brain. I swear, Jerry Bruckheimer is a moron. But yeah, that mars thing was just crazy stupid.

Actually, the gravity of Mars is NOT strong enough to retain water. That's the problem for Mars. Even if we bombarded it with water-ice-asteroids for a few hundred years (to raise the surface temperature to shirt-sleeve levels, and create some oceans) the planet would lose vast quantities of water every day.

Mars doesn't have a strong magnetic field - like Earth does - to deflect the heavy radiation coming from the sun. With Mars gravity being so light - water vapour (gas) rises VERY high into the atmosphere (unlike Earth where it is essentially a water desert above 70,000 feet) and here the Sun's heavy radiation smashes water molecules into Hydrogen and Oxygen. The Hydrogen then continues to rise (lightest element) until it literally gets blown away from the planet by the solar wind.

If you could see Mars in the right way, you'd see a plume of stuff, like a minor comet, leaving Mars in a line away from the Sun.

We *could* slow it down, but never stop it. You'd have to re-terraform Mars every few tens of millions of years or so.

The oxygen which is left slowly sinks to the surface, where it is oxidised by Fe (Iron) on the surface, or it reacts with various gases in the atmosphere before it reaches the surface. This is, ostensibly, why Mars has no free Oxygen.

Given Petawatts of power, you could probably reduce all the FeO2 (rust) into Fe + O2 and build up an oxygen atmosphere - but best idea is to crack the oceans to produce O2 and H for breathing atmosphere and fuel. Who knows what inert gas you'd use to pad the atmosphere - pure O2 is VERY dangerous stuff!

To protect humans on the surface you could build an atmosphere so thick that it cuts out all the heavy radiation. I have no clue as to how thick it would have to be - maybe on the order of 250 miles (or more) - in which case, you suffer the fate of having your hugely expensive atmosphere ripped off the planet at an increased rate.

good one mobi oxodised oxygen eh?
cheers rij

I thought oxidation of iron was oxygen reacting with iron resulting in the slow burning of the iron. In short the iron is consumed much like wood in a fire but at a much slower rate.

Oxydized iron is rust, That's why Mars is red

Mobi, have you been skipping your medication again?

Even if Mars has only 10% of the Earth mass, it still has an escape velocity of 5.02 km/s. That is 5020 meters per second.
Now, gas is not a solid object so this doesn't directly apply. Gasses need constant means to move upwards though, for them to escape the gravitational field. Tell me which, Mr. spin-doctor.

Let me help you. The escape velocity is 5020m/s, so if you want to shoot a mass of 10 Newton in space, you need (10 * 5020²)/2 Joules of energy. That's 126,002,000 Joules. Now, regardless how this energy is administered, this is the minimal amount required for 10 Newton to escape gravity on Mars.

Given the mass of Earth and Mars, 10 Newton on Mars is about 3 Newton on earth (very rough estimation, earth acceleration constant is 9.81m/s² and Mars is 3.71m/s²), and 3 Newton on Earth is about 0.3kg, and 0.3kg is 300cl of water. So 126,002,000 Joules are required to put about 300cl of water in space.

This energy may not be used to evaporate water or to heat steam, this is merely to accomplish the mechanical fact to escape the gravitational field. This is a strict minimum.

Now you tell me...

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Arial" size="3">Originally posted by Nitrofox125:
Without the right atmospheric pressure the water would vaporize into a gas or freeze.</font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>well it was'nt about the physical condition of the water but about keeping it on the planet, if you read up.

bwahaha²

Please tell me I'm not the only one who read Tri's post twice and got absolutely nothing out of it...

The only reason I got that was because I used to calculate stuff like that in 8th grade

Tri, you're forgetting that F_G dissipates over a distance R, as given by Newton's Universal law of Gravitation:

F_G₁₂ = G*m₁*m₂/R₁₂²

G is the universal gravitation constant of 6.6 * 10^-11. As you expand farther out into the Martian atmosphere, the effect of gravity on the molecules of air will be reduced by a power of 2 for every meter. Mars has a mass about one tenth of the Earth's, and a g constant of about 3/8 that of the Earth.

What does this mean? This means that the atmosphere will be smaller, because it will be easier for the molecules at the top of the atmosphere to escape. Which means we'd have to keep refilling the atmosphere to block out UV rays, but it would keep escaping, just as Mobi said.

And thus starts Physics 101 on the world famous University of DBB.

I throwed a ball one day and my friend hitted it an' it went ZOOOOM into outer space!

I got your escape velocity right here!

Mobius: Because Mars is smaller than earth, you can't maintain a permenate earth-like atmosphere till the end of the solar system, you need to redo it every 10 million years or so. Also something about Mars lacking a magnetic field.

Tricord: Mobius, Mars has more than enough gravity to maintain an earth-like atmosphere, you just need to get it there.

Dcrazy: But gravity weakens over distance, meaning that the atmosphere is smaller.

fliptw: And the size of the atmosphere was to do with what exactly?

Lets see...we establish a atmosphere and it's good for 10 million years. Am I missing something here?

Yeah, thats what I'm trying to figure out too.

The size of the atmosphere matters because that determines how well it blocks the harmful UV rays of the sun, how well it insulates the planet from other solar forces, how the weather acts, and whether or not the composition of the lower atmosphere remains breathable to humans.

one would think composition would be more important than size.