The bit of mars that fascinates me is the Hellis Planitia[1] A huge hole roughly opposite the globe from the large volcano complex[2] coincidence.. I think not.
I am vaguely surprised it was not higher rated for a rover mission. 7k meters down should do something interesting to the atmosphere if nothing else.
Yeah it's the one place that crosses the triple point of water, not by a huge margin, but likely enough to trigger planetary protection concern.
But there's places like the araneiform terrain where you likely get much higher transient pressures, and maybe they create enough of a greenhouse effect to warm up before they burst through the CO2 ice crust. They'd be a great way for life to spread mechanically using those pressurized bursts.
BurningFrog 5 hours ago [-]
If there is life on Mars, it will be underground.
So if you can get 7km down without digging, that's the first place to look!
NitpickLawyer 2 hours ago [-]
I really hope we'll see humans on Mars in my lifetime. For all the amazing success that rovers had, starting with Spirit and Opportunity, and now with Curiosity and Perseverence, having a bloke with a shovel can likely be more productive in a few days than years of missions combined...
King-Aaron 2 hours ago [-]
The recent findings about the dust being so fine it can penetrate the blood-brain barrier is a real concern though. The more we learn about the planet, the more it sounds pretty unsuitable for habitation.
Levitating 1 hours ago [-]
The cosmic radiation alone poses a major problem, let alone the logistics of supplying water/air/food. I am much more optimistic for a research outpost on Luna.
Though the person you commented on didn't refer to habitation specifically I think, just humans on the surface.
King-Aaron 59 minutes ago [-]
I tend to agree with your thoughts on the moon. Realistically we should be looking at orbital manufacturing and refuelling in our local neighbourhood first and use Luna as a staging area for any deeper missions, of which I feel there's far more interesting features to look at (i.e. Titan, Europa etc)
bajard 5 hours ago [-]
If you were standing on the "walls" of the canyon, it would look like terrain with a 10%–15% slope. You wouldn't even notice it's a canyon.
ButlerianJihad 3 hours ago [-]
This report obviously landed in Randall Munroe’s inbox on release
Rendered at 09:50:40 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
I am vaguely surprised it was not higher rated for a rover mission. 7k meters down should do something interesting to the atmosphere if nothing else.
1. https://trek.nasa.gov/mars/#v=0.1&x=72.07800218650755&y=-42....
2. https://trek.nasa.gov/mars/#v=0.1&x=-116.4913302335018&y=16....
But there's places like the araneiform terrain where you likely get much higher transient pressures, and maybe they create enough of a greenhouse effect to warm up before they burst through the CO2 ice crust. They'd be a great way for life to spread mechanically using those pressurized bursts.
So if you can get 7km down without digging, that's the first place to look!
Though the person you commented on didn't refer to habitation specifically I think, just humans on the surface.