Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars - Gizmodo Comments

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

sd180 — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 12:34:27 EST

@ kbarrett:
politicians do lie- but lame duck presidents usually less so... what's the argument that bush is pandering to voters? He's not running for office anymore- the presidential candidate he supports, McCain, was one of the first conservatives to come out in support of those who believe in global warming.

He's reluctantly supporting McCain as is, why should he stick his neck out THIS much?

Politicians do lie- but Bush taking a 180 on his beliefs on global warming really shouldn't be viewed as pandering to voters... you know, cause he really isn't running for anything anymore.

sd180

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

Knirfie — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 18:05:17 EST

@uberfu - Keep in mind that Mars' moons are very, very small (25 and 15 km diameter,), the gravity pull of them will also be small and not comparable to our moon (3500km).

Knirfie

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

kbarrett — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 14:03:26 EST

sd180:"Even the wacko conservatives and Bush have come to believe that greenhouse gases have caused global warming- are you two still in denial? ..."

Nope. Politicians lie all the time. Bush is just pandering to retards that believe in man-made global warming.

kbarrett

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

Barion — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 09:01:57 EST

There may be liquid water underground on Mars. Our next batch of probes will be checking out that theory. If so, that would be a huuuuge discovery. Especially if said water held life.

Barion

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

D3Anon — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 21:48:40 EST

Didnt a Transformer grab one of those mars rover or mars probe things?

D3Anon

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

PlaneParts — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 20:01:17 EST

@uberfu: "On a side note - the pics are cool_ But what all the excitement over a landslide is all about ? I don't know - as it's just dirt that slid down the side of a cliff_"

All I have to say about that comment is...

Women have boobs.
Everyone knows this, "they're just boobs," yet it is still very exciting to see them occasionally.

PlaneParts

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

sd180 — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 18:37:26 EST

@FThorn & gatordent

No you lame brains, this is an AVALANCHE on Mars; NOT a melting of the Martian ice caps due to greenhouse gases. you know, Avalanche, aka- typical occurrences of moving and sliding bodies of ice caused by the weaker foundation of lower layer of ice... the ice being pulled down by gravity. VERY different from the melting of the ice caps here, on this planet (Earth) due to higher air and sea temperatures weaking/melting and eventually causing entire chunks of the ice caps to tumble into the oceans raising sea levels. ... get it?

or do you two just see moving chunks of ice and assume it to the same? If you're that gullible, then I have some great beachside real estate in the Dakotas I think you might be interested in buying...

wait- does calling someone lame brain = flaming? ...

Even the wacko conservatives and Bush have come to believe that greenhouse gases have caused global warming- are you two still in denial? ...

sd180

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

kbarrett — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 17:45:54 EST

johnnyabnormal@ Yep every streat on mars is properly listed.

[www.google.com]

kbarrett

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

sonicwind — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 16:37:10 EST

when will Mars be open for snowboarding?

sonicwind

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

MastaFalse — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 15:07:16 EST

lol

MastaFalse

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

johnnyabnormal — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 15:00:25 EST

@SinistarX: Google Mars. They have street view too.

johnnyabnormal

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

johnnyabnormal — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 14:59:52 EST

Hey! Another Al Gore joke!!! Someone read a thread before posting! Hahahaha!!! Uh. Yeah.

johnnyabnormal

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

SinistarX — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 14:43:55 EST

The real mystery is... What took the picture of the satellite?? WE ARE NOT ALONE!

SinistarX

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

ottermann — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 14:40:23 EST

Mars' polar ice is composed of carbon dioxide, water and dust. Each cap has surface deposits of CO2 that form a cover over the cap during the martian winter, but sublimates down, exposing the layer of H2O ice and dust during the martian sumer.
Scientists estimate that 80% of the southern ice caps 3km thickness is water ice.

Mars is subjected to natural forces, just like earth is. Solar wind and direct sunlight cause erosion and evaporation, which likely caused the avalanche.

At this stage of the game, we can't send anyone to Mars to find out for sure. The radiation from the sun would tear any astronauts DNA into tatters, and they would die, a very painful death.

Hmm....maybe we could send Al Gore on a fact finding mission.....just tell him ManBearPig was spotted.....

ottermann

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

Cerixus — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 14:06:56 EST

@FThorn: Global Warming!!! Someone call Al Gore about this.

Cerixus

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

Half off all shafts! — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 14:00:16 EST

I think i know what's going on there...

[static.flickr.com]

Half off all shafts!

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

DeadWriter — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 13:45:47 EST

"Start the reactor...Free Mars."

DeadWriter

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

johnnyabnormal — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 13:12:49 EST

@Tek Elements:

The gravity is different, so you'd be pretty damn light. Better wear some SPF 4000 too and bundle up. I heard the UV is pretty intense & it's super cold. Oh, and the lift lines suck.

johnnyabnormal

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

kbarrett — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 13:06:50 EST

Tek Elements:
1) Yes
2) No

kbarrett

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

kbarrett — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 13:01:23 EST

The ice caps are Water Ice with a covering of Dry Ice ( frozen CO2 ) during the winter, when that hemisphere gets cold enough for CO2 to start freezing out of the atmosphere.

The MRO images are "sorta" false color.
[hirise.lpl.arizona.edu]

The HiRISE images are taken in red, blue/green, and IR ... and each of the three color detectors has a different resolution level, with the red imager going clear down to 25cm per pixel. Bandwidth to Mars is in short supply, so these imagers stagger resolution, and use non-standard colors to get the most info per byte sent ... pretty human seeable pictures are secondary.

In order to get red-green-blue true color images, some video fudging of the three transmitted images into one is used.

As for the global warming on Mars, I blame SUV use on Earth.

kbarrett

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

Tek Elements — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 13:00:30 EST

Only two questions.

1) Can we ski there?
2) Will my Ortovox S1 Avy Beacon work there?

Tek Elements

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

LoganSix — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 12:57:03 EST

If you look closely, you can see the vent hole where they escaped after setting off the terraforming device.

LoganSix

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

spectator101 — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 12:43:56 EST

Its not water ice, it is frozen CO2. Didn't anyone ever pay attention in their astronomy classes??? And yes, the coloring isn't "real".

spectator101

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

johnnyabnormal — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 12:39:47 EST

@lmulaire: I've heard it's frozen CO2. But I'm not a esteemed climate scientist like any of these guys:

gatordent
FThorn
uberfu
vertigoh

johnnyabnormal

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

twilight-arc — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 12:24:08 EST

This is just another reason to add live video capture to thes probes.

twilight-arc

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

Slartibartfast — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 12:20:04 EST

Cheap-y foreign crap. You know where the best avalanches are made? Earth.

Slartibartfast

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

smegz — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 12:19:06 EST

What kind of height are we talking about? I know that the ice caps on Mars are a couple miles thick, but how high is that cliff face? It is tough to get a good perspectiveon how big that really is, I imagine it is very big.

smegz

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

vertigo — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 12:15:59 EST

global warming is even fucking the martian snowcaps.

vertigo

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

XJ_4x4 — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 12:09:36 EST

All we need to do is find the ancient Martian teraforming machines and we can make Mars habitable again!

XJ_4x4

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

borgseawolf — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 12:08:04 EST

Doesn't anyone use google anymore? Of course there is water on polar caps. AND dry ice. It's just that there is no -liquid- water (and there may have never been one, for all we know).

Existence of water is not some Earth-unique phenomenon. There's water on comets, for Halley's sake.

borgseawolf

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

pevans34 — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:58:29 EST

thats pretty neat. Ill bet there is water on mars, not enough to make it like, worth living there, but definetly some

pevans34

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

Jimbuck — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:48:35 EST

@eatmonkeygood: Well said my friend.

Jimbuck

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

Kaiser-Machead's Chips Ahoy! — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:34:53 EST

@eatmonkeygood: I'm a member of the save the Martian rock fund. With your help, we can stop NASA's brutal assault on the precious, endandered Martian substrate.

Kaiser-Machead's Chips Ahoy!

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

turbofc3s — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:31:59 EST

Usesless without pix...of Ingrid!

turbofc3s

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

eatmonkeygood — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:29:02 EST

We've been on mars less then 10 years and we've already started to destroy their ecosystem

eatmonkeygood

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

drewheyman — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:22:21 EST

where does NASA get those gold garbage bags to make their satellites? does Hefty make those? i want my trash to be more fancy.

and yes, the presence of ice indicates Mars has water.

drewheyman

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

cosmicrob — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:18:31 EST

Makes me wish there was another planet we could go and live on. But no, we're stuck on this one.

cosmicrob

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

uberfu — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:17:47 EST

@FThorn: Yep green house gases and global warming on Mars - damn it's spread farther than we'd thought_ We bettter really start pushing for alternative fuels - it's bad enough we're polluting our own planet - we don't want to start polluting our neighbor planets_

On a side note - the pics are cool_ But what all the excitement over a landslide is all about ? I don't know - as it's just dirt that slid down the side of a cliff_

What ever!!

There is an atmosphere on Mars - thin though it may be - this would allow for weather_ Also - seeing as how gravity fluctuates on our own planet - it might be logical to assume that it might also flux on other planets as well_ Mars has 2 moons that would also affect gravity and weather on the planet_

Wait a minute - that sounds familiar - like maybe it does the same thing here on our planet - who'd have thought_

Unless they find a crashed space-ship or an Autobot - who cares!

uberfu

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

gatordent — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:13:54 EST

Somebody call Al Gore!!! Global warming is spreading throughout the entire galaxy.

gatordent

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

lmulaire — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:13:46 EST

If theres snow, wouldn't that mean theres water?

lmulaire

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

Kaiser-Machead's Chips Ahoy! — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:13:38 EST

OOoooh, this makes me very angry. Now find my illudium Q-36 explosive space modulator.

Kaiser-Machead's Chips Ahoy!

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

sam.k — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:13:30 EST

"All images are false color."

So all that white stuff that looks obviously like frozen water may not really be white.

sam.k

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

gizmodohomepage — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:08:12 EST

@FThorn: You mean Mars' ice caps aren't melting from CO2 and global warming like they are here. Call Gore!!!!!

gizmodohomepage

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

logruszed — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:02:19 EST

FAKE! You can totally tell this is photoshopped.

nah, this is pretty neat.

logruszed

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

AnONeamus — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 10:51:55 EST

Erm, yes, those other elements make frozen carbon dioxide in this case... AKA "dry ice"...

AnONeamus

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

sandmanfvr — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 10:49:54 EST

I wish they could do video, I figure the data transmission would suck pushing the video stream. Like 56k over a few millions miles. LOL Truely amazing photo though!

sandmanfvr

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

noah — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 10:43:50 EST

whatever they just whipped those up in Bryce 3D

noah

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

Out2gtcha — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 10:42:49 EST

Dammit, now I have to get Val and his crew back up there to clean up all the dust and debris.....

Out2gtcha

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

fostina1 — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 10:41:01 EST

well, if there is ice on mars, doesnt that mean there is water? or was water? and dont tell me other elements can make ice. it just makes frozen other elements.

fostina1

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

Pensador — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 10:40:49 EST

Can anyone put the vid on youtube?

Pensador

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

axiomatic — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 10:40:11 EST

"It's full of stars!" -Bowman

axiomatic

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

Geisrud — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 10:35:38 EST

Video or it didn't hap...errr...stupid soundstage is falling apart!

Geisrud

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

FThorn — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 10:34:58 EST

The sun is causing the Mars polar ice caps to melt, just like here.

FThorn

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

agent0064life — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 10:23:38 EST

Dammit Optimus I told you to keep it on the down-lo... commense operation relocation

agent0064life

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

jetexas — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 10:19:47 EST

Do you think the Martians worship our satellites as gods?

jetexas

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

P3nnst8r — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 10:17:59 EST

It kinda looks like some helldragon.

P3nnst8r

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

Thom — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 10:17:23 EST

Simply amazing!

Thom

Reconnaissance Orbiter Captures Live North Pole Avalanche on Mars

cryptoknight — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 10:14:07 EST

Amaz

cryptoknight