Posted by
michael
on from the promising-news dept.
TheSync writes: "The BBC reports in an article that the Mars Odyssey spacecraft has detected large deposits of hydrogen at high latitudes using its neutron spectrometer. This may indicate significant water ice on the surface of Mars!"
The key word is SURFACE ice
by
skrowl
·
· Score: 4, Informative
It's pretty much already been proven that subterrainian ice exists on the red planet. Surface Ice / Water could aid us in our eventually terraforming of Mars so we can go live there after we finish messing up the earth by over use of our natural resources and pollution.
--
Prevent linux based DDOS's! http://linux.denialofservice.org/
Oxygen doesn't mean spit
by
Spamalamadingdong
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Better than 2/3 of the mass of CO2 (dry ice) is oxygen, and there's plenty of that at the poles. A large fraction of the mass of rock is silicon dioxide, which is full of (would you ever have guessed it?)... oxygen. An oxygen detector will find it everywhere on any rocky object.
The stuff that's hard to find in accessible form off of Earth isn't oxygen, it's hydrogen. Once you've got the hydrogen it's not difficult to turn it into whatever other form you need. On a planet-like body the most likely form in which you'll find hydrogen is going to be water, though you might find traces of ammonia if it's cold enough.
The other thing about water is that it dissolves things and leaves other things. Movement of water tends to create useful ores, placer deposits of insoluble stuff like gold, and other things you could get an earful about by asking a mining engineer or geologist. Knowing where water is tells you where to look for those things.
Re:Waiting to exhale... a waste?
by
Fenris2001
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Well, not necessarily.
By melting the ice caps and driving water out of the soil, it would be possible to create a shirt-sleeve environment for humans and many other terrestrial species. I won't go into specifics, but I'm sure most/. readers are familiar with the concept: big orbiting mirrors focused on the ice caps, black dust spread on the ground to raise the temperature, artificial greenhouse gases, etc.
The point of all this effort would not be to create a stable system - that is probably impossible, due to the weak gravity and solar radiation environment. However, for a few tens of thousands of years, Mars would be habitable by almost every species on Earth.
I agree that the reality of making Mars habitable is not like the fantasies of most Mars Society members (I'm not one, though I link to them in my.sig). We can't turn Mars into another Eden, but we don't have to in order to learn a great many things & create a biological reservoir in case a truly astronomical disaster befalls our current ecosystem.
Mars is valuable in the minds of many for the opportunity it offers - truly global projects can be done that would be impossible on Earth for reasons of safety. Some of these are silly (melting the ice caps with thermonuclear weapons), others serious (building giant cables that stretch from orbit to the surface). The problem comes when, for whatever reasons, the delusions of some people crash headlong into reality.
Percival Lowell thought he saw a network of canals built by a Martian civilization, and Burroughs wrote books chronicling the end of that noble race. Neither the canals or the civilization existed.
If we approach the unknown with an open mind and a sense of wonder, then we learn much more about the way things really are. If we keep pinning our hopes and dreams on phantoms, we will forever be disappointed.
Slashdot Mirror
It's pretty much already been proven that subterrainian ice exists on the red planet. Surface Ice / Water could aid us in our eventually terraforming of Mars so we can go live there after we finish messing up the earth by over use of our natural resources and pollution.
Prevent linux based DDOS's!
http://linux.denialofservice.org/
The stuff that's hard to find in accessible form off of Earth isn't oxygen, it's hydrogen. Once you've got the hydrogen it's not difficult to turn it into whatever other form you need. On a planet-like body the most likely form in which you'll find hydrogen is going to be water, though you might find traces of ammonia if it's cold enough.
The other thing about water is that it dissolves things and leaves other things. Movement of water tends to create useful ores, placer deposits of insoluble stuff like gold, and other things you could get an earful about by asking a mining engineer or geologist. Knowing where water is tells you where to look for those things.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Well, not necessarily.
/. readers are familiar with the concept: big orbiting mirrors focused on the ice caps, black dust spread on the ground to raise the temperature, artificial greenhouse gases, etc.
.sig). We can't turn Mars into another Eden, but we don't have to in order to learn a great many things & create a biological reservoir in case a truly astronomical disaster befalls our current ecosystem.
By melting the ice caps and driving water out of the soil, it would be possible to create a shirt-sleeve environment for humans and many other terrestrial species. I won't go into specifics, but I'm sure most
The point of all this effort would not be to create a stable system - that is probably impossible, due to the weak gravity and solar radiation environment. However, for a few tens of thousands of years, Mars would be habitable by almost every species on Earth.
I agree that the reality of making Mars habitable is not like the fantasies of most Mars Society members (I'm not one, though I link to them in my
Mars is valuable in the minds of many for the opportunity it offers - truly global projects can be done that would be impossible on Earth for reasons of safety. Some of these are silly (melting the ice caps with thermonuclear weapons), others serious (building giant cables that stretch from orbit to the surface). The problem comes when, for whatever reasons, the delusions of some people crash headlong into reality.
Percival Lowell thought he saw a network of canals built by a Martian civilization, and Burroughs wrote books chronicling the end of that noble race. Neither the canals or the civilization existed.
If we approach the unknown with an open mind and a sense of wonder, then we learn much more about the way things really are. If we keep pinning our hopes and dreams on phantoms, we will forever be disappointed.
What the heck. It's only Karma.
---------------
Vpered na Mars!