A significant layer of water ice has been spotted across the mid latitudes of Mars, located just a few feet below the planet’s surface. This new finding adds a new layer to the geological history of the Red Planet, and also may offer a useful source of water for future human expeditions sent there.
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New computer models of Mars’ atmosphere are indicating that the Red Planet may experience rapidly-falling snowstorms at night, possibly sprinkling the surface below with a light layer of snow. It was previously assumed that snow that fell on Mars did so slowly, taking hours to drop a single mile, and typically evaporating before it reached the surface. But the new simulations show that ice crystals forming at night may only take about five to ten minutes to fall the same distance, explaining why NASA’s Phoenix lander observed a dusting of snow shortly after touchdown in 2008.
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Two new studies have been released that illustrate that the dry Martian lakebed that is currently being explored by NASA’s Curiosity rover was home to a habitable environment for over 700 million years, and possibly for well over a billion years.
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Part of the problem of long-distance manned space voyages is that of the amount of consumables that would need to accompany the astronauts on their journey would add a significant amount of mass to the ship spacecraft, requiring more fuel for the trip to haul the extra food, water, etc., with that fuel adding yet even more weight to the craft — needless to say, sending humans to another planet would be a resource-expensive endeavor. One solution often used in science fiction is to place the space travelers into suspended animation, typically in a state of biological suspension akin to a deep sleep.
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