Mountains of Mars 'Were Once Covered With Snow'
Mark Henderson
Times Online
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Large areas of the Red Planet were once turned white by heavy snowfalls that were common on Mars several million years ago, scientists say.
A new model of the ancient Martian climate has revealed that the glacial deposits of the planet’s tropics were laid down by snow carried to equatorial regions by monsoon winds.
The findings, published today in Science, resolve the mystery about the source of the rocks and debris at the foot of Mars’s tropical mountains and volcanoes spotted by Nasa’s Viking mission in 1976. A team led by James Head, of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, has now established that the deposits are the remains of large glaciers that formed a few million years ago.
“What we found was that the glaciers were formed from snow brought from the polar regions,” Dr Head said.
Jan 20, 2006
Mark Henderson
Times Online
__________
Large areas of the Red Planet were once turned white by heavy snowfalls that were common on Mars several million years ago, scientists say.
A new model of the ancient Martian climate has revealed that the glacial deposits of the planet’s tropics were laid down by snow carried to equatorial regions by monsoon winds.
The findings, published today in Science, resolve the mystery about the source of the rocks and debris at the foot of Mars’s tropical mountains and volcanoes spotted by Nasa’s Viking mission in 1976. A team led by James Head, of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, has now established that the deposits are the remains of large glaciers that formed a few million years ago.
“What we found was that the glaciers were formed from snow brought from the polar regions,” Dr Head said.
Jan 20, 2006
