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/
Official Page doesn't have the news
by
hether
·
· Score: 3, Informative
So why don't they have news about this on the offical 2001 Mars Odyssey page?
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
Cadillac Desert on Mars?
by
ackthpt
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Reading Cadillac Desert, which delves into the water history of the west. Interesting stuff about L.A. thieving the water from the Owens River. I'm sure it'll get even more interesting as I get to how L.A. is sucking much of the water out of the entire southwest and how battles are simmering to revoke L.A.'s water rights, starting with Mono Lake a couple years ago.
So, there's water on Mars. Probably not a ton of it, considering the gravity. Maybe enough, with the right structure (like a biosphere) to sustain a limited amount of life. Roll forward to a point where living on Mars isn't just a scientific undertaking but part of enterprise (like settling the western US was from the 1880's onward) and think about how valuable water will be and how carefully it'll need to be overseen.
As for whether there's life or not, big deal, we'll wipe it out in some clumsy way or it'll prove to be so toxic to humans or human agriculture that we'll leave it a derelict desert like much of the southwest. Entertaining thinking, anyway.
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Re:What's the signifigance....
by
Spamalamadingdong
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
The significance may be that the neutron spectrometer is working.;)
Really, the significance depends on who you're talking to. To the geochemists, I'll bet it means that there are probably mineral formations being made by percolation of soda-water through rocks (place a CO2 glacier on top of an H2O glacier and you'll get things dissolving into each other near the bottom where the pressures get up there). To the xenobiologists, it means that they've got a place to look for life. To the planetary scientists, they've got something against which to test their models of atmospheric/hydrospheric formation and evolution. To the Mars Society, it's a guarantee of the raw materials for rocket fuel, agriculture and an eventual technological society on the Red Planet.
From what I can recall, haven't they known about ice caps on Mars for a while?
Or is it just that they didn't know if it was *water* ice or not?
Of course it's water ice. Why would the Martians go to the trouble of building a planet-wide canal system if there was no water to fill them up?
Colonization isn't as far away as it seems
by
Tattva
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
With this information, we have all the technology we need to permanently colonize mars at a reasonable price. Take the south pole science stations: self-contained, self heated, comfortable places to live where the only outside resources they utilized were gravity, air, and snow. Mars has all 3, but the air would need a little more work. With hydroponics, solar panels and limited chemical lab and machine shop capabilities, a self-sustaining colony is quite reasonable. Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes are incredibly efficient enclosures, and could probably be constructed with polymers created from materials readily available in the ground.
The only thing I am not sure about is iron, copper, and other metals deposits. Polymers replace the need for these in many cases, but not all. Anyone know the mineral layout of Mars? I imagine it is like every unmined region on the Earth, incredibly rich in easily-retrievable resources. Just think of Austria's Tallar gold mines (the largest gold strike in history and the origin of the word "dollar.") or South America's Potassi silver mines (the largest silver strike.)
The only question is whether colonizing Mars is something humanity wants to do. The return on investment on Earth in economic terms would probably be close to nil due to the cost of transport. On the other hand, making sure all our eggs aren't in one basket sounds like a reasonable self-preservation strategy.
-- personal attacks hurt, especially when deserved
Re:Colonization isn't as far away as it seems
by
mlosh
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
>The only thing I am not sure about is iron, copper, and other metals deposits
I am not an planatary geologist, but it would seem that Mars has a lot of Iron. It's not rust-colored for nothing!:-)
The book _Red Mars_ assumes that the colonists can use local iron and magnesium for construction materials and that many materials can be chemically fabricated.
Interesting....
by
Fenris2001
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
The article states that the evidence of hydrogen was found in the soil near the polar caps - not unexpected, but nonetheless interesting.
There is overwhelming evidence that water flowed on Mars in the geologically recent past. The main question for those studying Mars is, Where did that water go?
We've known since the Mariner probes that there is a large reserve of water in the ice caps at either pole, but this reserve is not large enough to account for all of the erosion features of Mars. If, as has been suggested recently, there was once a giant ocean covering the northern hemisphere of Mars, then there is a LOT of water missing from Mars.
If, as has been suggested, there is a significant amount of water adsorbed into the soil of Mars, and as these results seem to indicate, this could account for the missing water.
Other theories suggest that the absence of a Martian magnetosphere may explain the lack of water on Mars - without a shield from a planetary magnetic field, the solar wind would dissociate large amounts of water vapor in the atmosphere - raising the amount of free oxygen. The hydrogen would be lost into space, especially on a planet as small as Mars.
Why is this important? Because some of the smae processes are going on here on Earth - water is lost through photo-ionization and conversion to crustal rocks. The amount of water vapor in our atmosphere is a very important factor in global warming and weather patterns. So, by studying another planet, we can learn about our own. Very neat stuff.
Re:Interesting....
by
Cally
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Other theories suggest that the absence of a Martian magnetosphere may explain the lack of water on Mars - without a shield from a planetary magnetic field, the solar wind would dissociate large amounts of water vapor in the atmosphere - raising the amount of free oxygen. The hydrogen would be lost into space, especially on a planet as small as Mars.
Aha! Yes! But!:)
Mars Observer has found, firstly, evidence that a substantial (possibly planetary-scale) magnet field existed in geological time - in the form of fossilised magnetic fields, interestingly in stripes of alternating polarity, like on earth either side of crustal spreading zones such as the mid-Atlantic ridge, which implies a tectonic conveyor built was going for a while early in Martian history;
and secondly, regional mini-magnetospheres, big enough to have effects on the density of the atmosphere and (IIRC) weather patterns. (Haven't got an URL to hand, but it would have been somewhere on the JPL Global Surveyor site.
It'll be interesting to see what the regional distribution of this hydrogen looks like, once higher resolution data comes out. Er, in.
--
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Dan Quayle Knew All Along!
by
Serk
·
· Score: 3, Funny
Mars is essentially in the same orbit... Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle, 8/11/89 (reported in Esquire, 8/92)
-- Never ask a geek why, just nod your head and slowly back away. -Rob Malda
It seems to me that if we are going to find signs of life anywhere on Mars it would be in the ice caps. Spores have been known to survive thousands of years on earth, perhaps we could find some form of microbe still frozen in the ice that could even survive if thawed. It may even be possible for these life form to still thrive (Volcanic activity creating liquid water beneath the caps?). I believe Nasa should make it a priority to have their next surveyor gather samples of the ice for analysis.
-- I stole this Sig
Economic use doesn't need a colony
by
Spamalamadingdong
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
The return on investment on Earth in economic terms would probably be close to nil due to the cost of transport.
Yeah, down on Earth surface you're right. But suppose you need large amounts of stuff in orbit, or on the Moon? Mars' smaller gravity well might actually make it cheaper to ship water and such from there than to haul it up from the ground on ol' Terra; if I recall correctly Olympus Mons is effectively outside the Martian atmosphere, so you could build a mass-driver on the slope and launch almost directly to orbit from there without so much as an Estes motor (you'd need some kind of apogee kick or it would fall back). Tossing stuff electrically vs. using rockets might be cheap enough to make it worth going to Mars to get the stuff to toss in the first place.
Reporting MO's preliminary observations, scientists said the first pass by the probe's neutron spectrometer had revealed evidence of the element in soil at high latitudes.
Maybe we should not jump to a conclusion before we hear from Larry and Curly, too?;^)
(Posting this as the theme from the "Three Stooges" runs through my mind.)
Colonization, oops
by
cornjones
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Significant water-ice deposits easily accessible from the surface would make it much more likely that life existed at some stage on Mars.
Damn keyboard shortcuts!... sorry about the double post.
Aren't we more interested in finding water to give us a more reasonable hope of colonizing Mars? once we get a few thousand people on Mars they can look for signs of previous life but lets get a backup of the human race over there first.
That is why we are interested in water on mars. we want to drink it.
Finding water (or ice) on Mars is fascinating, but people that think this means we can turn it into a vacation resort are not being realistic.
As you point out, Mars does not have enough mass or magnetic shielding to preserve an atmosphere. Creating one by melting the ice caps would be a waste.
Then again, glass dome anyone?
--
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
South pole stations
by
wowbagger
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Actually, those stations get a hell of a lot more than just "air, snow, gravity" - they get massive shipments of fuel oil, food, construction materials, electronic supplies, medical supplies, you name it.
They manufacture almost NONE of their needs.
Now, were we to build a south pole station that actually DID use only water, air, and gravity, and created everything else they needed from materials found at the south pole and processed there, that would be something.
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.
CO2 on Mars is more important the H2O
by
spike+hay
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
It has been known for a long time that there is water near the surface. That Mars meteorite with the microfossils more or less proves that mars at least had life at some point.
I think the most important thing on mars is CO2, not H2O, however. A huge amount of dry ice is locked in Mar's polar ice caps and underneath its crust. If mars could somehow be warmed enough to gasify just some of this dry ice, it would create a runaway greenhouse effect and warm Mars enough for liquid water and plant life. The plants would in turn produce oxygen, which we can breath.
The hard part is kicking of the runaway greenhouse effect by melting the dry ice. This could be practically accomplished by one of 2 ways:
1. You could build a large gossamer mirror near mars to reflect more sunlight onto it, warming Mars up. This isn't as hard as it sounds, for very advanced humans. The mirror would *only* weigh a few thousand tons.
2. Or, you could put CFC-generating self-replicating machines (like nanobots) on its surface that which can also warm the Mars though the greenhouse effect.
-- If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
Your argument is sound, but needs to be expressed more carefully. Oxygen in the form of oxidized compounds is, as you point out, very common. But when you say "Oxygen" people assume you're talking about "common" O2.
We take this substance for granted because we happen to live on a planet that has a lot of it. But it's actually pretty rare -- O2 combines with other stuff very easily, and disappears. Luckily for us, there are all these green life forms that constantly pump it out as metabolic waste.
So if we spot lots of free O2 (or any other unstable substance), you have to assume something interesting is going on.
I'm a little suprised to hear that hydrogren is rare. Don't hydrogen atoms make up something like 90% of the universe? But perhaps you mean it's rare on rocky planets.
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/
So why don't they have news about this on the offical 2001 Mars Odyssey page?
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/odyssey/
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
So, there's water on Mars. Probably not a ton of it, considering the gravity. Maybe enough, with the right structure (like a biosphere) to sustain a limited amount of life. Roll forward to a point where living on Mars isn't just a scientific undertaking but part of enterprise (like settling the western US was from the 1880's onward) and think about how valuable water will be and how carefully it'll need to be overseen.
As for whether there's life or not, big deal, we'll wipe it out in some clumsy way or it'll prove to be so toxic to humans or human agriculture that we'll leave it a derelict desert like much of the southwest. Entertaining thinking, anyway.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Really, the significance depends on who you're talking to. To the geochemists, I'll bet it means that there are probably mineral formations being made by percolation of soda-water through rocks (place a CO2 glacier on top of an H2O glacier and you'll get things dissolving into each other near the bottom where the pressures get up there). To the xenobiologists, it means that they've got a place to look for life. To the planetary scientists, they've got something against which to test their models of atmospheric/hydrospheric formation and evolution. To the Mars Society, it's a guarantee of the raw materials for rocket fuel, agriculture and an eventual technological society on the Red Planet.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Or is it just that they didn't know if it was *water* ice or not?
Of course it's water ice. Why would the Martians go to the trouble of building a planet-wide canal system if there was no water to fill them up?
The only thing I am not sure about is iron, copper, and other metals deposits. Polymers replace the need for these in many cases, but not all. Anyone know the mineral layout of Mars? I imagine it is like every unmined region on the Earth, incredibly rich in easily-retrievable resources. Just think of Austria's Tallar gold mines (the largest gold strike in history and the origin of the word "dollar.") or South America's Potassi silver mines (the largest silver strike.)
The only question is whether colonizing Mars is something humanity wants to do. The return on investment on Earth in economic terms would probably be close to nil due to the cost of transport. On the other hand, making sure all our eggs aren't in one basket sounds like a reasonable self-preservation strategy.
personal attacks hurt, especially when deserved
The article states that the evidence of hydrogen was found in the soil near the polar caps - not unexpected, but nonetheless interesting.
There is overwhelming evidence that water flowed on Mars in the geologically recent past. The main question for those studying Mars is, Where did that water go?
We've known since the Mariner probes that there is a large reserve of water in the ice caps at either pole, but this reserve is not large enough to account for all of the erosion features of Mars. If, as has been suggested recently, there was once a giant ocean covering the northern hemisphere of Mars, then there is a LOT of water missing from Mars.
If, as has been suggested, there is a significant amount of water adsorbed into the soil of Mars, and as these results seem to indicate, this could account for the missing water.
Other theories suggest that the absence of a Martian magnetosphere may explain the lack of water on Mars - without a shield from a planetary magnetic field, the solar wind would dissociate large amounts of water vapor in the atmosphere - raising the amount of free oxygen. The hydrogen would be lost into space, especially on a planet as small as Mars.
Why is this important? Because some of the smae processes are going on here on Earth - water is lost through photo-ionization and conversion to crustal rocks. The amount of water vapor in our atmosphere is a very important factor in global warming and weather patterns. So, by studying another planet, we can learn about our own. Very neat stuff.
---------------
Vpered na Mars!
Mars is essentially in the same orbit... Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle, 8/11/89 (reported in Esquire, 8/92)
Never ask a geek why, just nod your head and slowly back away. -Rob Malda
It seems to me that if we are going to find signs of life anywhere on Mars it would be in the ice caps. Spores have been known to survive thousands of years on earth, perhaps we could find some form of microbe still frozen in the ice that could even survive if thawed. It may even be possible for these life form to still thrive (Volcanic activity creating liquid water beneath the caps?). I believe Nasa should make it a priority to have their next surveyor gather samples of the ice for analysis.
I stole this Sig
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
If I could only figure out how to recalibrate my neutron spectrometer so it would detect beer (free) instead of water...
"Good things don't end with eum, they end with mania or teria." - H. Simpson
From the referenced article:
Maybe we should not jump to a conclusion before we hear from Larry and Curly, too? ;^)
(Posting this as the theme from the "Three Stooges" runs through my mind.)
Significant water-ice deposits easily accessible from the surface would make it much more likely that life existed at some stage on Mars.
Damn keyboard shortcuts!... sorry about the double post.
Aren't we more interested in finding water to give us a more reasonable hope of colonizing Mars? once we get a few thousand people on Mars they can look for signs of previous life but lets get a backup of the human race over there first.
That is why we are interested in water on mars. we want to drink it.
ej
Finding water (or ice) on Mars is fascinating, but people that think this means we can turn it into a vacation resort are not being realistic.
As you point out, Mars does not have enough mass or magnetic shielding to preserve an atmosphere. Creating one by melting the ice caps would be a waste.
Then again, glass dome anyone?
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
Actually, those stations get a hell of a lot more than just "air, snow, gravity" - they get massive shipments of fuel oil, food, construction materials, electronic supplies, medical supplies, you name it.
They manufacture almost NONE of their needs.
Now, were we to build a south pole station that actually DID use only water, air, and gravity, and created everything else they needed from materials found at the south pole and processed there, that would be something.
www.eFax.com are spammers
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!
It has been known for a long time that there is water near the surface. That Mars meteorite with the microfossils more or less proves that mars at least had life at some point.
I think the most important thing on mars is CO2, not H2O, however. A huge amount of dry ice is locked in Mar's polar ice caps and underneath its crust. If mars could somehow be warmed enough to gasify just some of this dry ice, it would create a runaway greenhouse effect and warm Mars enough for liquid water and plant life. The plants would in turn produce oxygen, which we can breath.
The hard part is kicking of the runaway greenhouse effect by melting the dry ice. This could be practically accomplished by one of 2 ways:
1. You could build a large gossamer mirror near mars to reflect more sunlight onto it, warming Mars up. This isn't as hard as it sounds, for very advanced humans. The mirror would *only* weigh a few thousand tons.
2. Or, you could put CFC-generating self-replicating machines (like nanobots) on its surface that which can also warm the Mars though the greenhouse effect.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
We take this substance for granted because we happen to live on a planet that has a lot of it. But it's actually pretty rare -- O2 combines with other stuff very easily, and disappears. Luckily for us, there are all these green life forms that constantly pump it out as metabolic waste.
So if we spot lots of free O2 (or any other unstable substance), you have to assume something interesting is going on.
I'm a little suprised to hear that hydrogren is rare. Don't hydrogen atoms make up something like 90% of the universe? But perhaps you mean it's rare on rocky planets.