Sept. 5, 2008 -- If life on Mars exists, it may dwell in a violent home.
The Red Planet is no stranger to fiery volcanic eruptions: It is home to the solar system's largest volcano, Olympus Mons. The planet is also well-endowed with ice, which has collected in large sheets near its north and south poles. Yet a key ingredient for life as we know it -- liquid water -- remains elusive.
But what if fire met ice in the Martian north? On Earth, volcanoes sometimes erupt beneath glaciers, melting huge quantities of water and spawning massive floods. Lakes of meltwater are sometimes pinned at the bottoms of glaciers.
Could the same happen on Mars? If so, it might be one of the best places to look for alien life. Now a new study published this month in the planetary science journal Icarus claims to have found evidence of just such an event in the Abalos region, at the edge of the northern ice cap.
Led by Neils Hovius of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, a team of researchers examined images from several Mars mapping missions and found what they believe are telltale signs that a massive flood swept southward from the ice cap 20,000 years ago, carving two channels in a V shape.
Along one side, the V extends 75 miles, and 12 miles on the other. Where the channels meet, the team also noticed a series of flat, mesa-like rock formations that could be the volcanoes themselves.
"It's possible that volcanic activity on Mars is much more widespread and recent than people on the whole thought," Hovius said. "This is a flood bigger than anything we've seen on Earth."
The team's idea isn't new. Scientists have looked at oddly-shaped channels, including the Abalos area, before as a place where volcanoes clashing with ice may have caused liquid water -- and perhaps even life -- to coalesce.
One of those researchers, Jack Farmer of Arizona State University, believes water had nothing to do with the formation of the Abalos channels: He thinks they were scoured by wind.
"I've been talking about this since 1999 or 2000, saying this eruption environment would be a great type of place to look for life," he said. "But we studied this area and simply have not found any compelling evidence for aqueous channeling there."
Farmer and colleague Nick Warner estimate that on Mars, polar winds could blow at up to 45 miles per hour. A gale like that could easily have carved the Abalos channels. Wind scouring could have also dug up the mesa-like features Hovius thinks indicate recent volcanic eruptions.
Instead of 20,000 years, Warner and Farmer think the eruptions are far more ancient, between hundreds of thousands to millions of years old.
"This is a very important controversy," Farmer said. "We want to pick a site where we can one day send a life detection mission to Mars. But right now where we've been looking in the northern ice cap, we haven't seen anything convincing."
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