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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
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To: Krowbar who wrote (528865)1/24/2004 9:22:26 PM
From: Thomas A Watson  Read Replies (1) of 769670
 
OK they are not melting, they are subliming. The atmosphere of mars is 95% CO2 and the dry ice is subliming. 95% CO2 and the it's so cold the CO2 freezes.

space.com

Global warming on Mars?

In the other study, led by Michael C. Malin, features at the south pole were observed to retreat by up to 10 feet (3 meters) from one Martian year to the next.

The odd shapes -- circular pits, ridges and mounds -- were first photographed in 1999. Since then, the features have eroded away by up to 50 percent.

The pits are growing, the ridges between them shrinking.

Caplinger and Malin caution that a year's worth of data does not reveal when this erosion began or how long it will continue. Yet they speculate that the features could have been created in a Mars' decade and may erode away completely within one to two decades.

"We know that the pits we see at the surface today are not very old, and that they will not last very long," Malin said.

Water or not?

The rate of erosion suggests the features are made of moderately dense but solid carbon dioxide, rather than water ice, the scientists conclude. But that does not preclude the possibility of water ice at the south pole.

"We don't know what's underneath," Caplinger said. "You could certainly have water ice under carbon dioxide."
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