Well one of the most interesting ways it could affect Mars is if you get a big asteroid or comet that impacts into the polar regions. This could create a lake which would rapidly freeze over. But the ice covering it would insulate the water below, and calculations show that the lake could stay liquid for about a thousand years.
So, this surely happens from time to time. And that lake would be a prime habitat for life on Mars - if there is any life there, as many scientists think there could be - then it might well colonize these lakes when they form.
It would be utterly fascinating to study a lake like that if one of them formed right now. Even a smaller lake that lasts only for a decade or two or a century. And also an impact in other parts of Mars in the sub polar regions - it could release sub surface ice and form temporary floods that could fill a crater and again form a temporary lake.
Sort of like this
For more about this see the book: Lakes on Mars (google e-book version available)
So, this surely happens from time to time. And that lake would be a prime habitat for life on Mars - if there is any life there, as many scientists think there could be - then it might well colonize these lakes when they form.
It would be utterly fascinating to study a lake like that if one of them formed right now. Even a smaller lake that lasts only for a decade or two or a century. And also an impact in other parts of Mars in the sub polar regions - it could release sub surface ice and form temporary floods that could fill a crater and again form a temporary lake.
Sort of like this
This one is thought to be just solid ice.
But if an impact melted the subsurface ice on Mars it might well form a lake that looks like this - but only the top meter or so is solid ice, and below, it remains liquid for a long period of time, insulated by the ice. And at reasonable temperatures too, above the melting point of ice, for a period of time of up to a thousand years for the larger impacts.
For more about this see the book: Lakes on Mars (google e-book version available)
About the Author
Robert Walker
Writer of articles on Mars and Space issues - Software Developer of Tune Smithy, Bounce Metronome etc.Studied at Wolfson College, Oxford
Lives in Isle of Mull
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