Planet Four Talk

Detailed Theory on cause affect and features.

  • Jonsmith9847 by Jonsmith9847

    Whats causeing the cracks?
    This is what i think:
    The sun is at a point of high activity releaseing more radation from its surface in the form of "solar flares".

    This radation is hiting the surface of mars acting a bit like microwaves cooking from the inside. This causes the inside or core of the planet to destabilise and increase forces acting on the surface of mars.

    Unlike Earth the plates formed by this movement are smaller in sise. This is like ice breaking. The pressure forces the surface cracks to open up and this presure forces the dust or surface of mars to be ejected into the space above the surface and fall back to ground produceing the fans and spots.

    Like tectonic plates hear on earth they produce diffrent features depending on the direction the plates are moveing. say if the plates are moveing apart you get spots as there is no obstruction or stronger force acting on the dust. When one plate moves over the other the top plate controls the direction of the fan.

    This is constistant with the images as the fans all appear to be froming in ridges and pointing the same direction. This proves there is a common force acting on the area of fans. (They are connected by something).

    What makes the features darker or lighter?
    This is simple the ground on earth changes colour the deeper you go so you can get dark top soil and light clay below. This is the same on mars as you get diffrent colours of sand at diffrent levels. So the ejected material is comeing from deeper under the surface of mars.

    So i belive the structure of mars to be like this:
    Sand..............
    Ice ---------------
    Rock"""""""""""""
    liquid[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[

    If this where to be true this would be great to help understand what mars is like underground without having to drill into the earth or crash satalites into the surface.

    I belive that the history of mars to be this:
    mars was once a very wet planet that could have organisms living in this water. Then the planet cooled as it aged and the liquid turned to ice. this ice slowly moved around the surface of mars acting like a clacier grinding the rocks beneath it into sand. then being deposited onto the surface of mars in the same way we are studying now.

    This is just some cases i belive to be ture and would be willing for my ideas to be changed and disproved or proved. Because that is what science is about. I based most of my ideas on natural phenomenon that exist on earth. So thank you for reading my comment and message me if you have any questions of corrections i can make.

    By Jon Smith

    Posted

  • mschwamb by mschwamb scientist, translator in response to Jonsmith9847's comment.

    There's no liquid water involved in this process at all. All that you're seeing is part of a seasonal thawing a carbon dioxide ice sheet on the South Pole. The Sun hits the carbon dioxide ice and sublimates the bottom of the ice sheet creating carbon dioxide gas trapped under the ice sheet. Channels are carved into the surface of Mars by carbon dioxide gas trapped under the thawing carbon dioxide ice sheet on the south pole of Mars. Where there are weaknesses in the ice sheet the CO2 gas breaks through to the surface as geysers bringing dust and dirt entrained with it. The dust and dirt gets deposited in the surface and then we believe the wind blows the material into those dark fans if there is wind and if no wind blotches. it is those blotches and fans were are asking you to mark.

    The reason we think the fans and blotches are the same dirt and dust that is below the ice sheet, is that once the spring is over at the end of the summer when we know there is no more carbon dioxide ice, the fans and spots disappear. You might ask then why they look dark on top of the ice sheet, shouldn't the ice sheet be clear. We'll not completely there is some atmospheric dust mixed in there, so that allows the fans to look dark compared the surface viewed through the ice.

    You can learn more about what these features and how we believe they form here and here.
    Cheers,
    ~Meg

    Posted

  • wassock by wassock moderator in response to mschwamb's comment.

    Meg Just to clarify, in the reply above you say that the dust settles and THEN gets blown into a fan by the wind? Rather than settles into a fan because it's blown by the wind?

    Posted

  • mschwamb by mschwamb scientist, translator in response to wassock's comment.

    It probably settles into a fan as it's blown by the wind while it's falling. If the wind isn't blowing we think that's how blotches form.

    ~Meg

    Posted

  • wassock by wassock moderator

    That's what I thought, just checking

    Posted