Pages - Menu

Pages

Saturday, March 17, 2007

The Caves of Mars?

On my morning stroll through the internet, I found an article at BBC News about cave entrances being possibly spotted on Mars. I love exploring caves here on earth, but caves on Mars, now that would be fun! If I remember correctly, the surface gravity on Mars is around 38 to 40% of what it is on earth, and would allow for some easier navigation through 'those tight spots' inside a cave where there is an unfavorable slope angle.

A portion:

The candidate caves are on the flanks of the Arsia Mons volcano and are of sufficient depth their floors mostly cannot be seen through the opening.

Details were presented here at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston, Texas.

Temperature data from Mars Odyssey's Themis instrument support the idea.

The authors say that the possible discovery of caves on the Red Planet is significant.

The caves may be the only natural structures capable of protecting primitive life forms from micrometeoroids, UV radiation, solar flares and high energy particles that bombard the planet's surface.

No comments:

Post a Comment

I appreciate your interest in commenting on what I have written and/or linked to, here are the ground rules and commenting philosophy at Thunder Pig.

Spam links will not be tolerated. If you have a product or service you wish to advertise, please use the contact info on the upper left sidebar at a buffer email address. Then, we shall discuss advertising rates.

Flooding the comments is not permitted. If you post more than three comments in a row in a thread, your comments will be deleted. Give me, and others, time to respond or comment on your comments.

Vulgar or profane comments will be deleted. Respectful disagreement and debate is encouraged, and links to cite your references are welcome.

I may highlight your comment on the front page, and I read the comments I get, and try to respond to them, but sometimes forget. (My memory buffer is limited).

Comments for posts will be closed in 14 days, when they go into moderation. I may read them, but only in very special circumstances will I approve them. Those circumstances are known only to God, and occasionally, me.