In the News:
Study links fresh Mars gullies to carbon dioxide
Quote:
A growing bounty of images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter reveals that the timing of new activity in one type of the enigmatic gullies on Mars implicates carbon-dioxide frost, rather than water, as the agent causing fresh flows of sand.
…
Gullies that look like this on Earth are caused by flowing water, but Mars is a different planet with its own mysteries," said Serina Diniega, lead author of a report on these findings in the November issue of the journal Geology.
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Yippee !
There's part of me that has been eagerly awaiting a study like this one !
To date, just about all of the flow-related geological evidence observed on the surface, seems to have automatically led to the conclusion that volumes of liquid H2O have caused it. I've never seen any serious consideration given to the possibility of other mechanisms.
At last someone is starting to consider the possibility that large amounts of sublimating, (& other physical state), CO2 may be behind it.
This report has made my day. So far, discussing this possibility around here has been out of the question, but now that we have some scientific analysis on it … who knows what directions our conversations about life existing and human colonisation of Mars might take !!
Can't wait to read the report .. I just hope I can get hold of it !
Cheers