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POPSChannels associated with impact craters discovered on Mars If a significant amount of water was released or mobilized by the formation of the Hale Crater impact, larger impacts that formed during the early days of the Solar System may have been able to bring even more water to the surface of Mars. If this is true, a long-term, stable, warm and wet climate may not be required to explain the presence of such channels in the ancient Martian landscapes.
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POPSNASA discovers ice may be extensive on Mars A little over six months later, more images of the same crater showed the ice was gone, leaving only brown dirt where the frozen water had been. That, too, was exactly what the scientists believed would happen: the ice had "sublimated," turning to invisible vapor in the thin, cold Martian atmosphere. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/25/MN6U19SMRH.DTL#ixzz0SGDy61RG
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POPSPatterns in Mars crater floors give picture of drying lakes Rain and river water would have collected inside impact crater basins, creating lakes that may have existed for several thousand years before drying out. However, El Maarry believes that, in the northern hemisphere, some of the crater floor polygons could have been formed much more recently. “When a meteorite impacts with the martian surface, the heat can melt ice trapped beneath the martian crust and create what we call a hydrothermal system. Liquid water can fill the crater to form a lake, covered in a thick layer of ice. Even under current climatic conditions, this may take many thousands of years to disappear, finally resulting in the desiccation patterns
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POPSArtificial Meteorite Shows Martian Impactors Could Carry Traces Of Life Unfortunately the heat of reentry was so high, even with a protective two centimetre-thick rock coating, that the organisms were carbonised. They died but their cells still remain as "pompeified" forms. if martian sedimentary meteorites carry traces of past life, these traces could be safely transported to Earth. However, the results are more problematic when applied to Panspermia, a theory that proposes living cells could be transported between planets. STONE-6 showed at least two centimetres of rock is not sufficient to protect the organisms during entry."
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