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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (888295)	9/16/2015 2:20:53 PM
From: Bonefish	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574956

Does Mars have enough gravity to hold an atmosphere?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (888295)	9/16/2015 2:31:09 PM
From: combjelly	Respond to of 1574956

They aren't? How do we know? What do you mean, how do we know? Just look at any discussion of the topic. Erosion of the Martian atmosphere is talked about. Despite Eric's claims. That's the point I'm trying to make. Bunch of theorists coming up with ideas and putting them through scenarios that we can't even be sure are accurate models of the Martian atmosphere. What is very obvious at this point is that you know very little about the current state of the science of Mars. We actually know quite a bit. The reason why there is serious talk about terraforming Mars is that it goes through part of the process. A large fraction of the Martian atmosphere freezes out during the polar winter. Like 25% to 30%. At the start of the polar summer, when sun light hits the frozen CO2, it rapidly sublimes, completing the process in days to a few weeks. Winds up to 400 km/hr spiral off the pole. And air pressure goes up, peaks and then declines as CO2 freezes out at the other pole. Not all of the CO2 at the south pole sublimates during its summer. It isn't a huge jump the say a) it is possible to sublimate it all off and b) if you do so the air pressure will climb even higher. c) higher pressure means more greenhouse effect making it warmer. spaceref.com It has been speculated that this has happened in the past, giving Mars liquid water on the surface in places. Again, of course he wasn't being totally serious. There are plenty of reasons not to do it, none of which you have articulated. It is one I have never seen before, however. I can't see any reason why it wouldn't work, although some of the side effects probably wouldn't be desirable.