Giant Volcano Discovered On Mars (phys.org) 23
Scientists have discovered a giant volcano on Mars, as well as a possible sheet of buried glacier ice near the planet's equator. Phys.Org reports: Imaged repeatedly by orbiting spacecraft around Mars since Mariner 9 in 1971 -- but deeply eroded beyond easy recognition, the giant volcano had been hiding in plain sight for decades in one of Mars' most iconic regions, at the boundary between the heavily fractured maze-like Noctis Labyrinthus (Labyrinth of the Night) and the monumental canyons of Valles Marineris (Valleys of Mariner). Provisionally designated "Noctis volcano" pending an official name, the structure is centered at 7 degrees 35' S, 93 degrees 55' W. It reaches +9022 meters (29,600 feet) in elevation and spans 450 kilometers (280 miles) in width. The volcano's gigantic size and complex modification history indicate that it has been active for a very long time. In its southeastern part lies a thin, recent volcanic deposit beneath which glacier ice is likely still present. This combined giant volcano and possible glacier ice discovery is significant, as it points to an exciting new location to study Mars' geologic evolution through time, search for life, and explore with robots and humans in the future. The announcement was made at the 55th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas. You can read more about it here (PDF).
Can it produce oxygen? (Score:1)
Re:Can it produce oxygen? (Score:5, Informative)
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Perhaps eventually but as I understand it Martian atmosphere is depleting slowly not rapidly and such an eruption would kick up millions of tons of dust into high orbit. This is not the largest or only active volcano we know of on Mars either. If that shielding dust is useful we could potentially trigger the eruption of several.
We don't actually know the composition of our planet's core. What we know is that it has a weak magnetic field that shields us from solar wind particles. That is what mars is missing
Re:Can it produce oxygen? (Score:4, Interesting)
What I've heard as a rough estimate is that if somehow someone was able to give Mars a dense atmosphere (thicken it with water vapor, nitrogen and a whole more CO2 to create a greenhouse effect) it would probably endure for a million years, but without replenishment, eventually the solar wind will indeed just blow it away. As to create a sufficient magnetic field, well, I don't see how it's actually possible to create that large a magnetic field without a helluva lot of energy. I don't know if there is an engineering solution without magical far future technology to shield Mars' atmosphere from the solar wind. I've read of some guys suggesting we bombard the planet with comets and other debris to kick start the various cycles (carbon, nitrogen, water) as well as create a whole lot of heat to start melting the large amounts of water, but for that we're talking if not super far future planetary engineering, then at least we're talking about really big rocket engines (probably nuclear) shoving all kinds of gunk at Mars from every corner of the solar system.
Who knows, maybe in a few centuries the technology will exist to pull it off. Mars certainly seems the most likely body in the solar system to terraform. It is, by some estimates, still in the Goldilocks zone, so providing there's a sufficiently dense atmosphere with enough CO2 to actually capture more solar radiation, it might work. But it really would take a whole other level of technology to protect that atmosphere from steadily being eroded, and stop everyone from getting horrible cancers along the way.
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This has come up before and the idea is to put a magnet in space [phys.org] so that Mars rides the wake. Not sure exactly how this plays out, because they're talking about 1 or 2 Teslas, and then when I google that it's the strength of an MRI, but presumably needs to be that strong over a much greater distance.
The link mentions an "inflatable" structure, so I guess that's how they'd get the strong field out over a large enough distance.
Just skimmed it, not seeing anything about likely power source or requirements--ob
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Earth's magnetic field is only 25 to 65 T at the surface so substantially weaker than that in the upper atmosphere. A 1 to 2 Tesla field requirement would certainly indicate distance away from Mars and therefore much much smaller but when talking about scaling down from the size of an entire planet that still might be quite large. Luckily it is in space, no shortage of room for solar panels.
It might even be possible to not block but deflect the radiation with a lower energy requirement perhaps even capturin
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Another wing of this notion occurs to me. There are a lot of rocks out there already, it could even be possible to land a big chunk in the right location.
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"As to create a sufficient magnetic field, well, I don't see how it's actually possible to create that large a magnetic field without a helluva lot of energy."
I don't know how strong a magnetic field is required but the Earth's magnetic field is pretty weak. The further from the source the more that solar wind is going to diffuse so presumably it could be much smaller at some midpoint but the field (for instance you can block all the light being reflected off mars from hitting your eye by holding up your th
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Maybe, but it won't help. The oxygen would be washed away by solar wind. The liquid metal core of our planet protects us for the same thing, but Mars no longer has a liquid metal core.
Wouldn't that make all the dreams of Terraforming Mars a waste of time?
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Presuming you could do it at all (and that's a pretty big assumption) it isn't going to be blown away in a few years. It would take hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of years for the atmosphere to decay. It certainly would endure long enough for a colonization effort, but that presumes you can pull it off, and again, that's a massive "if". You would need some really huge rockets to intercept and redirect comets and other material to start bulking up the atmosphere.
In a future where we have fusion
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No, it's just another facet of the engineering challenge.
We know how to make magnetic fields, and we know the effect magnetic fields have on the solar winds. The rest is engineering at scale.
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So it makes sense to increase it, and ideally pursue some of the ammonia based asteroids to crash into mars( ammonia turns into N2 ).
Mars has many larger (and even larger) volcanoes (Score:5, Informative)
While it's cool they've just discovered this one hiding in plain sight, Mars is known for having giant volcanoes, and this new one is dwarfed by Olympus Mons [wikipedia.org], which is 22km high and covers an area equivalent of Italy. There are no plate tectonics and so, unlike Hawaii, these shield volcanoes continuously build up over a hot spot. In Hawaii, the plate moves over the hotspot(s).
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But Olympus Mons has been inactive for tens of millions of years, no?
But can you make (Score:1)
Grande, please.
Hey Elon, will you be the first to put a Starbucks on Mars?
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a molten volcano Frappuccino with it? Grande, please. Hey Elon, will you be the first to put a Starbucks on Mars?
It's bad enough we're already hearing the plans for what's essentially indentured servitude for the first generations of any planned Mars colony, let's not do the disservice of also handing them the worst fucking coffee in the known universe wrapped in consumerist worship. Those people will be suffering enough already.
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Curious (Score:2)
Neat coincidence, as in the WH40k book Mechanicum dealing with Mars, IIRC there is a volcano postulated in/under the Noctis Labyrinthus as well....
Mining (Score:1)