BY: IZAKOVIC

CREATED: 12-28-2000

1. MARTIAN PERMAFROST SEAS

During 1998, Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) of San Diego, CA, have used high resolution images of Mars taken with the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) on Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft (MGS) to test the hypothesis, developed in the 1980’s, that oceans once covered much of the northern hemisphere of Mars.

The possibility that such body of water once existed was first suggested by a number of features on images recorded by the Viking spacecraft in 1976. At that time become quite obvious the fact that parts of Martian surface, apart from the ice in the polar regions, contain permafrost, which occasionally melts producing water spouts, as was indicated by the image no. 77A11 on the right (cloud shape with shadow to the left of the upper crater). This image was first published in the NASA Activities newsletter, vol. 11, number 12 on Dec. 1980 by Dr. Leonard Martin of Lowell Observatory (click on the image for the link to the LAURA LEE SHOW interview with Vince DiPietro), and this led to his professional degradation making his discovery, to the public outside of the professional circles, unknown.

In press release on October 1, 1999, MSSS declared that the new high-resolution images, five to ten times better than those Viking has provided, shows no evidence of ancient oceans on Mars, but that the idea that Mars at one time had seas or oceans cannot not be ruled out.

Than, on 22 June 2000, MSSS releases (click on the image to link to the MSSS site) that the first direct clue that there might be places on Mars where liquid water has seeped onto the surface in the geologically recent past came from a picture taken during the pre-mapping Orbit Insertion Phase of the mission at the end of December 1997, while the spacecraft was in the midst of aerobreaking maneuvers to put it into the circular orbit needed for the Mars surface Mapping. The image showed dark, V-shaped scars on the western wall of a 50 kilometer large impact crater in southern Noachis Terra at 65°S, 15°W. Scars appeared to be similar to seepage landforms present on Earth that form where springs emerge on a slope and water runs downhill.

In March 1999 MGS achieved its Mapping Orbit and in January 2000 a picture of 10 times higher resolution than the aerobreaking image was taken (above) of the possible seepage sites on the wall of the same crater, now called Aerobreaking crater. This new close-up shows that the dark V-shaped scars host many small channels of only a few meters across. These small channels run downslope, owing to the low atmospheric pressure evaporate and coalesce at the apex of each V.

According to MSSS, the gully landforms are usually found between latitudes 30° and 70° in both Martian hemispheres, on slopes facing away from mid-day sunlight, which keeps water running in them cooler, slowing down its evaporation. Furthermore it was said that the relationship to sunlight and latitude may indicate that ice plays a role in protecting the liquid water from evaporation until enough pressure builds for it to be released catastrophically down a slope.

Release concludes that the relative freshness of these features might indicate that some of them are still active today, meaning that liquid water may presently exist in some areas.

More:

https://web.archive.org/web/20070120211731/http://www.deepspace4.com:80/pages/main/pagemain.htm

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IZAKOVIC