Scientist Discovers Plate Tectonics On Mars

[ScienceRocks]

Scientist Discovers Plate Tectonics On Mars

ScienceDaily (Aug. 9, 2012) — For years, many scientists had thought that plate tectonics existed nowhere in our solar system but on Earth. Now, a UCLA scientist has discovered that the geological phenomenon, which involves the movement of huge crustal plates beneath a planet's surface, also exists on Mars.

"Mars is at a primitive stage of plate tectonics. It gives us a glimpse of how the early Earth may have looked and may help us understand how plate tectonics began on Earth," said An Yin, a UCLA professor of Earth and space sciences and the sole author of the new research.

Yin made the discovery during his analysis of satellite images from a NASA spacecraft known as THEMIS (Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms) and from the HIRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. He analyzed about 100 satellite images -- approximately a dozen were revealing of plate tectonics.

Yin has conducted geologic research in the Himalayas and Tibet, where two of Earth's seven major plates divide.

"When I studied the satellite images from Mars, many of the features looked very much like fault systems I have seen in the Himalayas and Tibet, and in California as well, including the geomorphology," said Yin, a planetary geologist.

For example, he saw a very smooth, flat side of a canyon wall, which can be generated only by a fault, and a steep cliff, comparable to cliffs in California's Death Valley, which also are generated by a fault. Mars has a linear volcanic zone, which Yin said is a typical product of plate tectonics.

"You don't see these features anywhere else on other planets in our solar system, other than Earth and Mars," said Yin, whose research is featured as the cover story in the August issue of the journal Lithosphere.

The surface of Mars contains the longest and deepest system of canyons in our solar system, known as Valles Marineris (Latin for Mariner Valleys and named for the Mariner 9 Mars orbiter of 1971-72, which discovered it). It is nearly 2,500 miles long -- about nine times longer than Earth's Grand Canyon. Scientists have wondered for four decades how it formed. Was it a big crack in Mars' shell that opened up?

Scientist discovers plate tectonics on Mars

 

[Mr. H.]

You do bring up some really cool shit, but maybe you could consolidate it all in "Matthew's Marvelous Science Thread".

 

[signelect]

With the billions spent to get us to Mars, this helps my life how? It is a great jobs program for scientist but how about the garden variety tax payer. How am I better off for having made this investment.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Mars is not an "early state of Earth"...it is more in a state of "after Earth".
Can't believe a scientist would say that.
Mars had an atmosphere at one time when it's volcanism was active...and probably even had plant life. But without a magnetic field the solar winds carried the atmosphere away - and the planet died.

 

[ScienceRocks]

With the billions spent to get us to Mars, this helps my life how? It is a great jobs program for scientist but how about the garden variety tax payer. How am I better off for having made this investment.

Same could be said about being in the middle east while our borders are open. Talk about a giant fucking drain. At least science helps us keep our edge.

Look all through history and you will find that the ones at the cutting edge of technology are normally the powers. Want to become a piss ant country like Mexico? Well, kill science.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

With the billions spent to get us to Mars, this helps my life how? It is a great jobs program for scientist but how about the garden variety tax payer. How am I better off for having made this investment.

NASA has contributed immensely to our lives in discoveries and inventions...
Such as:

Scratch resistant lenses.
memory foam
ear thermometer
long distance telephone
smoke detectors
cordless tools
small sized water filtration units (Brita and so on)

Nasa is a regular invention production plant.

 

[ScienceRocks]

You do bring up some really cool shit, but maybe you could consolidate it all in "Matthew's Marvelous Science Thread".

Here's the deal...Threads of the same subject, I will put the updates into. New subjects will get get a new thread.

 

[Mr. H.]

Well, excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me!

 

[ScienceRocks]

With the billions spent to get us to Mars, this helps my life how? It is a great jobs program for scientist but how about the garden variety tax payer. How am I better off for having made this investment.

NASA has contributed immensely to our lives in discoveries and inventions...
Such as:

Scratch resistant lenses.
memory foam
ear thermometer
long distance telephone
smoke detectors
cordless tools
small sized water filtration units (Brita and so on)

Nasa is a regular invention production plant.

Yep,

These same people want us to have the most powerful military on earth, but you certainly don't have the most powerful military, without the most cutting edge technology. Saddam Hussein had an 800,000 man army in the first gulf war, but with over 40 year old equipment didn't have a chance. We blew his military into the ground.

The sky crane that landed this rover is something that could advance our military greatly. Imagine being able to move assets this way and fast? Simply by dropping in anywhere.