Spacecraft finds eruptions on Mars (southern polar ice cap and jets of carbon dioxide gas)

LOS ANGELES - Mars' southern polar ice cap is believed to erupt in a violent fit of heated gas every spring in a process that helps explain why the Red Planet has dark spots in that region, scientists said Wednesday.

Jets of carbon dioxide gas burst from the ice cap as it warms every spring, carrying dark sand and dust that fall back to the surface as dark splotches, concluded Phil Christensen of Arizona State University, who analyzed images from NASA's Odyssey orbiter.

"If you were there, you'd be standing on a slab of carbon dioxide ice," he said in a statement. But gas builds beneath the slab, raising it, and bursts through vents in weak spots, he concluded.

For years, scientists have puzzled over the origin of the dark spots, ranging from 50 feet to 150 feet wide. The spots only appear in the spring, last for several months, and then restart the cycle.

Scientists have thought the spots were part of the ground revealed as the ice disappeared. But Christensen, using the Odyssey camera, found that the spots were as cold as the carbon dioxide ice, suggesting they were a layer of dark material that covered the ice.

Mars is being intensively studied closeup for the first time. We're bound to learn much more, but that doesn't mean that conditions have recently changed, just that we're aware of it. Remember in the late 1990s, there was that scam story about how the ice at the North Pole had melted, and that it was the first time in 30 million years? That falsehood (which had a source of "anonymous scientists") was printed something like eight times in the NY Slimes, including at least once AFTER the retraction was printed. Entertainer David Letterman was so disturbed by the initial story that he talked about it in his monologue a few times. When the retraction appeared, he remarked that the original story was not true, and that the melting happens all the time.

I'm perfectly happy to accept that Mars is warming -- but we'll need a long baseline to figure it out, and obviously it isn't warming now because of the presence of the Viking landers from 30 years ago. If Mars warms up, it'll be great to have that data to refute the false notion that human activity is changing Earth's climate. Instead, we see in this story that CO2 is pukin' out all over and will soon see how that causes Mars to warm. Ridiculous, and it's being orchestrated.

Mars is warming because the sun is warmer, something to do with sunspot cycles.

there was that scam story about how the ice at the North Pole had melted, and that it was the first time in 30 million years?

LOL, as I understand it these poles usually don't melt they vaporize every year or two... hhmmm

The North Pole of the Earth, though, not Mars. :') Ditto on the solar cycle, there's a long, irregular period when the number of sunspots (and solar radiance) decreases -- called Maunder Minimums -- and then turns around and increases. (*:

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