Liquid water on Mars?

[Dr Mordrid]

According to this article it's possible;

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/051115_science_tuesday.html

Dr. Mordrid

[Elie]

Great! We have water, minerals, an ice cap, probably ice underground, all we need is an atmosphere, and Mars can be inhabitable

I would say just melt the ice to create the atmosphere and we're done! LOL

Cheers,
Elie

[Dilitante1]

only problem is weak electro-magnetic field, here we are shielded from solar winds, there we would be vulnerable....

[Dr Mordrid]

And that same lack of a magnetic field would allow the solar wind to blow away any terriaformed atmosphere just as it did the original atmostphere.

An atmosphere-preserving magnetic field requires at least one (and probably both) of the two things that keep Earths iron core molten & moving: residual heat from the planets condensation and/or the radioactive decay of isotopes also in the core.

The latter has been strongly suggested by the detection of neutrinos (known as "geoneutrinos") coming out of the core. The geoneutrinos appear to come from the decay of uranium, thorium, and potassium. Some estimate that this decay amounts to ~60% of the heat in Earths core.

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/hep-ph/pdf/0406/0406001.pdf

Since most of the iron in the proto-suns nebula condensed in the sun and innermost rocky planets it's reasonable to assume that Mars got the short shrift.

Earth of course has an advantage in that it likely has a double dose of iron. This because Earths current structure is now thought to be the result of a collision between two proto-planets; "Earth 1" and another body called "Orpheus", which was about the size of Mars.

Some of the mixed crust was ejected to form the moon and both iron cores joined to form the current core whose magnetic field has allowed for our existance.

Dr. Mordrid