• Question: what would happen if the ice on Mars melted seeing as there is no oxygen or anything on Mars ??

    Asked by iknowthisone to MarkF, Mark, Michael, Panos, Sarah on 21 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Panos Soultanas

      Panos Soultanas answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Hello iknowthisone,

      I certainly don’t know this one..! I guess nothing would happen. It does not really have any impact on us, unless we discover that there is something on mars like life (microbes). That would be big news and would change our thinking about life in the universe.

    • Photo: Mark Fogg

      Mark Fogg answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      I’ll make an educated guess at this one.
      Mars would get a great deal wetter and warmer. There would be water vapour in the air and probably carbon dioxide, making the thin atmosphere thicker. These act as greenhouse gases so the planet would warm up. Eventually there would probably be lakes and streams and clouds and rain. If there is any life on Mars, such as bugs or primitive algae, it will gradually cover the surface. Some bacteria and primitive algae are very happy living without oxygen here on Earth, so the same could be true of any life there might be on Mars. It is likely these bugs would produce Oxygen that could allow other life to evolve.

    • Photo: Mark Travis

      Mark Travis answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Sorry, am no expert on this kind of thing at all. I guess it would just disappear into the non-oxygen containing atmosphere?

      But your question says that there is no oxygen on Mars. If there is truely ice (i.e. frozen water = frozen H20), won’t the ice contain oxygen?

    • Photo: Sarah Burl

      Sarah Burl answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      If that happened than it would mean that there had been some major change in the atmosphere so could mean that plants could grow and there would be life on mars!

    • Photo: Michael Loughlin

      Michael Loughlin answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      good question…i looked around and have to give credit to these guys for an excellent answer

      http://www.mit.edu/~goodmanj/madsci/975718368.As.r.html

      really good answer with links…thanks for the question

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