Talk:Massive ice deposits found on Mars

This is poor - the ice was known about before - it's just the polar ice cap , the radar study just confirmed it -

This has been published for days, and the existence of an ice cap was news to me. I have reverted your tagging, and please sign your comments. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 19:05, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

We know there were ice caps...but ice of what? Water? Ethane? etc...This is news to me as this is nearly the first definate sign that actual H20 (earth water) exists on the planet. DragonFire1024 19:25, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

wrong, sorry. Only just become a user here so couldn't sign. The polar caps of Mars have been know for a long time to be water ice with a thin (10m or so) covering of CO2 ice. This is by structural arguments - CO2 ice is very weak and so would simply crack well before the long known 3km thickness of the polar caps. There is no ethane in Mars' atmosphere, regards Sbandrews 20:24, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

We're not Wikipedia, we do news - and judging by the fact we've myself and one other contributor unaware the caps were water it's news. The media have made a big deal out of the search for water on Mars due to its relationship with life. You could put some Wikipedia links here to expand on the topic, but I'm pretty sure the consensus will be to keep the article pretty much in its current form. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 20:29, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Well ok - I've had my say - I'll crawl back to wikipedia :) good luck with your project, Sbandrews 20:37, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

As I hope you understand, we're not wanting to drive people away but news is a different animal. Look at how the cited sources have titled their articles, the fact that this is water is what they think makes it news. Personally I'd not be opposed to a {{wikipediapar}} box and a bit about (I'm guessing here) the fact that the caps were known to contain water - just not how much. Even if you'd stuck a couple of links here on the talk, you'd probably have been thanked for educating us dumb amateur journalists. :) --Brian McNeil / ^talk 20:48, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Well I'm a dumb amateur writer too ;) long live WikiTruth, regards Sbandrews 21:24, 19 March 2007 (UTC)