Zodiacal light linked to ancient Martian oceans

The material that makes up the Zodiacal light is quite young. The
pressure of sunlight causes the particles to either fall into the sun
or be 'blown' intot he outer solar system. The current estimate is
that material that makes up this light is less than 100000 years old
and therefore must be the result of recent collisions/comets etc.

(Abdul Ahad) wrote:

That faint cone of light extending away from the sun along the line of
the ecliptic and best seen shortly after sunset and just before
sunsrise. On clear moonless nights, under ideal conditions, it is
supposedly equivalent to about one third of the night sky's total
light and should therefore outshine the Milky Way, except may be for
the dense central regions of our galaxy toward Sagittarius and
Scorpius.

The best explanation for its existence is down to extremely fine (0.1
to 0.2 micro-metre diameter) particles of ice and dust scattered by
comets in the main plain of our solar system over billions of years.

Just one thought occurred to me the other day. What if - a big 'if'- a
large proportion of its constituent particles are actually made up of
oxygen ions which are the remains of water from the ancient seas of
Mars?! Since Mars is thought to once have had a thicker atmosphere
and oceans of liquid water on its surface, could it be that the
Zodiacal light we see along the line of its orbital plane is actually
fossilised remains of an ancient Martian biosphere?

A rather wild and fanciful idea I'm sure...and someone will no doubt
tell me to stop day dreaming!

One question though: does the ESA or NASA have plans for any future
missions to study the Zodiacal light? A "SIPDA" mission (Solar system
In-Plane Debris Analyser) would seem like a good idea and may be able
to confirm if my above hypothesis is indeed totally groundless...

Abdul Ahad
http://uk.geocities.com/aa_spaceagent/


Robert Chafer

Wasn't it Robert Chafer who wrote:

The material that makes up the Zodiacal light is quite young. The
pressure of sunlight causes the particles to either fall into the sun
or be 'blown' intot he outer solar system. The current estimate is
that material that makes up this light is less than 100000 years old
and therefore must be the result of recent collisions/comets etc.

I would have thought a cometary origin to be unlikely. Comet orbits are
at all sorts of angles to the ecliptic, but the material that causes the
Zodiacal light seems to be mainly in the ecliptic plane.

--
Mike Williams
Gentleman of Leisure

Well, the only thing that occurs to me is that the Martian water was
driven off by the solar wind, for the most part -- I find it somewat
difficult to understand how that mass could *decelerate* from Mars'
orbit to take up station within the inner solar system. It would seem
more likely that the mass of Mars' seas ended up being swept out to the
outer reaches of the solar system, instead.

I'm not an orbital dynamicist, though -- so I'd love to see people who
have more actual training in that field chime in here...

I think it depends on the size of the dust grain. Small grains get
pushed by solar radiation and larger ones get dragged towards the sun
(Something called Ponyting Robertson drag:
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionar...bertson%20drag)

Robert Chafer