Comments on: Glacial tributaries draining south on Mars

By: gbaikie

gbaikie — Wed, 22 May 2024 15:30:31 +0000

It seems a hope of finding life on Mars, could be connected to finding a cave, which has water in it.
A cave with ice in it, could be good place for Mars exploration base, and perhaps a place for settlements on Mars.
Deep caves without anything filling them, should interesting in terms understanding the general geology of Mars.
But generally, I think mining a lot water, and making lake at the surface and having settlement around and within the lake seems
like good way to start to have settlements on Mars.
It’s a way of selling Mars real estate.

By: Robert Zimmerman

Robert Zimmerman — Wed, 22 May 2024 02:10:25 +0000

In reply to gbaikie.

gbaikie: Asking how many caves there are on Mars, or the Moon, or even the Earth, is like that standard question cave guides get all the time for tourists: “How many miles of unexplored passages are there in this cave?”

Do a search on BtB for “pits” and you will see a lot of posts about pits on Mars and the Moon. For the Moon look specifically for the caves in the crater Copernicus.

On Mars there should be plenty of lava tubes, created by flowing lava. Whether there are any caves formed by flowing water remains unknown.

By: gbaikie

gbaikie — Wed, 22 May 2024 00:34:37 +0000

A question is how many caves does Mars have- and how many are impassable because they are filled with H2O and/or CO2.
Also how many caves on the Moon? One could guess, not many are filled with H20 and/or CO2.
How many caves are under our ocean- they would mostly, filled seawater.
–How many caves are there on Earth?
The number of accessible caves on Earth is staggering. In the United States alone, at least 45000 have been identified, and the supposition is that there are thousands more. Worldwide, the number is almost certainly over a quarter million, and new caves are discovered on a nearly weekly basis.–
And some are found in the ocean, and ocean area is 70% of Earth surface.