Astronomy Rules :: Essays Papers

Astronomy RulesMars would make a lousy emcee for the Winter Olympics. Yes, theres the lack of air to consider. But more important, Martian snow turns out to be rock hard. Worse, it is melting away at an alarming rate.In detail, Mars may be in the midst of a period of profound climate change, according to a mod study that shows dramatic year-to-year losses of snow at the south pole. It is not yet clear, though, if the evidence of a single years change represents a trend. But the study provides a surprising new view of the nature of the southern ice cap, give tongue to Michael Caplinger of Malin Space Science Systems.Its saying that the permanent cap isnt quite so permanent as we thought, Caplinger said in a telephone interview.A second study of both poles finds that Red Planet snow is more dense and hard than the euphemistic jam-packed powder advertised by Eastern ski resorts, and nothing like the soft flakes expected in Utah for the 2002 Olympics. Instead, its hard as ice.Thoug h unrelated, the cardinal studies were based on observations made by NASAs Mars Global Surveyor and both will be published in the Dec. 7 issue of the journal Science. The unite observations represent an exciting new way to look at Mars atmosphere and how it interacts over time with the polar caps and even soil at mid-latitudes, said David A. Paige, a researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles.The new data are showing whats going on on Mars seasonally as well as on interannual time scales in much more detail than we had with previous observations, Paige told SPACE.com.Where the snow isBoth of Mars polar regions are covered in permanent caps of ice. Scientists have know since the 1970s that some of the ice in the north is water ice. There may be water ice in the south, too, but there is no firm evidence. Both poles are covered in a veneer of carbon dioxide ice, popularly called dry ice here on Earth. Each cap grows during its winter and recedes in summer. The research in to snow density, lead by David E. Smith of NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center, confirm that much of the Martian snow is in fact composed of carbon dioxide.The study involved more than 400 million elevation measurements spanning more than one Martian year, from February 1999 through May of 2001. The orbiting spacecraft bounced a beam of laser light to the surface and back, recording the round-trip time to determine elevations within 4 inches (10 centimeters).