ancient river 1000mi long, 4mi wide, 1000ft deep on mars

[The Dharma Bum]

I've always thought of it as a precursor atmosphere. But I can also see it as the greenhouse effect gone wild.

[The Comrade]

don't underestimate us. we're trying, damn it.

[WizardfromOz]

[John Galt]

what's interesting is both venus and mars have basically no magnetosphere, but venus has atmosphere and is a lot closer to the sun. warming the south pole of mars by something like 5 C will melt the ice leading to more atmosphere and whatnot, enough CO2 for lichens and possibly enough atmosphere so you'd just need a mask. lifetimes from now, i know, but i do think we can create a green mars. there's gotta be ice everywhere on that rock. some think that the water is underground, and normally is, and then volcanism pushes it out and heats it, and then the water runs and runs till it gets back underground

[The Comrade]

if you melted all the ice on mars you would have a 30 foot deep ocean on the planet. there's plenty of ice already to do whatever we need to do.

[The Dharma Bum]

[The Dharma Bum]

[The Comrade]

it's not just radiation that it helps to stop. the force of solar wind on an unprotected atmosphere literally wicks it away little by little. so even if we made a viable atmosphere on mars it would be destroyed just as quickly.

[John Galt]

[The Comrade]

"[29] The loss happens mainly via the magnetotail. Currently the main ion types being lost are O+, H+ and He+. The ratio of hydrogen to oxygen losses is around 2 (i.e. almost stoichiometric) indicating the ongoing loss of water.[28]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere ... netosphere