Mars Colder Than Expected

May 15th, 2008

Although Mars is the Red Planet, and it would seem that it would be warm just simply because of the color, we all know from remedial astronomy that it is further from the sun than we are so it has to be colder right?

Apparently, Mars is much colder than we actually thought it was. With recent exploration at Mars’ northern pole it seems they have guessed that the ice there seems to show the temperatures are much colder than were expected. It is also thought that the possibility of water on Mars is much deeper below the ice than was originally thought. That paddle boat franchise opportunity on Mars is slowly slipping through my fingers.

An international team of scientists used the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to probe the north pole of the red planet with radar. The ice cap there goes about 1.2 miles deep (2 km) and is roughly the size of Pakistan at 310,000 square miles large (800,000 square km).

These scans revealed the polar cap has up to four layers of ice rich in sand and dust, each separated by clearer sheets of nearly pure ice. Each dirty and clean layer is some 1,000 feet thick (300 meters).

“All this layering is key evidence for theoretical models that predict that changes in Mars’ climate are coupled with orbital changes,” said researcher Roger Phillips, a geophysicist at Southwest Research Institute in Boulder. read more about it here.