New Data Dispute Theory That Mars Had a Warm Climate

I read a good article in the New York Times today that talked about Mars. Scientists are reporting today that there are no white cliffs on Mars which casts even more doubt on the theory that Mars once had a warm, wet, Earth-like climate favorable for life. The Surveyor spacecraft (currently in orbit around Mars) has been measuring the glow of infrared light from the rocks on mars, looking for patterns of colors that identify different minerals. In particular, scientists have been interested in minerals known as carbonates, which form only in the presence of liquid water. On Earth, the white cliffs of Dover in England are a notable example of carbonates. In today's issue of the journal Science, the researchers who run the infrared instrument report that Global Surveyor has detected small concentrations of carbonates in Martian dust, 2 percent to 5 percent by weight, but none of the large deposits that would probably form at the bottom of a lake or an ocean. Today Many planetary geologists are now moving toward the view that Mars has been cold throughout its 4.5-billion-year history and that the considerable quantities of water known to exist there have been frozen almost all of that time.