More on the Mars Ice Cap

bfwebster writes "In a striking example of how a preliminary (but wrong!) scientific conclusion can persist for decades, Space.com has a story about how the south polar ice cap on Mars is mostly water, not mostly carbon dioxide (dry ice), as has been stated since the late 1960s. The new finding is based on analysis of Mars Observer readings that show that the souther polar ice cap is too warm at certain seasons to be dry ice. This finding has negative implications both for those claiming that liquid flow structures on Mars were caused by C02 instead of H20, as well as those who were hoping to use all that CO2 for terraforming."

Comments

Spectrometer?

[HaeMaker]

Why are they using this flimsy temerature evidence that the ice is water and not C02? It seems to me that they could use a spectrometer to determine its exact chemical composition...

Re:Spectrometer?

[mattdm]

That's ridiculous. As a member of the general public, if they say: "we used some of our scientific instruments, and those say it's water", I'm going to go ahead and believe them, because I've got no reason not to. I don't even need to know if it's a spectrometer or some other sort of gizmo.

Re:Spectrometer?

[torpor]

Yeah, but the chances are you'll lose interest right after hearing the word 'spectrometer', unless you know what one is...

How is this important?

[rice_web]

Okay, we know now that most of the ice cap is actually water. So....

What does that mean? Will that mean a new space initiative aimed at a manned trip to Mars? More satellites hovering over the red planet?

I guess what I'm asking: will we actually do anything productive with the news of water on Mars? If not, are we simply wasting hundreds of millions on Mars, when many other projects exist for NASA?

Terraforming Mars

[vlad_petric]

I think that highest problem with Mars' terraforming is not of "biochemical" nature but astrophysical. Mars doesn't have a huge satelite like Earth (relatively speaking, of course - Moon is one sixth of Earth's mass) to regulate its rotation. As a consequence Mars doesn't really have stable seasons (well, Earth doesn't seem to have them either, but for a completely different reason :)) and I believe that this is a huge impediment in any kind of a terraforming effort

Re:Terraforming Mars

[smack_attack]

Seasons are caused by the relation of the planet to the sun, one hemisphere getting more light than the other when the axis moves. You wouldn't need a moon/satellite to have seasons.

Howabout...

[gearheadsmp]

..we find out the real story and send a probe to Mars/Europa/Whereever else to settle this indecisiveness. It's not that hard.

Anti-Terraforming?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there anybody on /. who is actually OPPOSED to the idea of terraforming another planet? In the article it says some folks are going on about making our own place more livable, yadda yadda yadda, but I don't really see why anybody would be opposed to the idea of expanding humanity's reach. Please don't mod me flamebait, I'm really interested in knowing why anybody would think it's a bad thing...

Re:Anti-Terraforming?

[Azureflare]

It's not that it's a bad thing. The problem is, that we haven't yet fully come to understand Earth's weather systems. How can we possibly expect to create a feasible system on another planet? There is still a lot more that needs to be learned about complex systems.
Also, it is silly to divert our attention to pipe dreams, when with a little tweaking we can make the planet we're living on a Gaia. Why would you throw away 65 billion years (or however many years life has been evolving on this old rock) to start from square one on another planet? It's just silly!
Personally, I think the idea of terraforming Mars is just another form of escapism from reality. Let's deal with where we are right now, instead of looking to far off places when there are problems in front of us. Anyone else read Charles Dickenses "Bleak House"? Mrs. Jellyby is a prime example of what we should NOT do.

Re:Anti-Terraforming?

[zipwow]

In response to some of your questions:

Why would you throw away 65 billion years (or however many years life has been evolving on this old rock) to start from square one on another planet?

Because terraforming Mars would risk only the population of Mars (currently zero). Terraforming Earth would risk the population of Earth. The consequences of the latter are rather larger than the former.

Let's deal with where we are right now, instead of looking to far off places when there are problems in front of us.

Why can't we do both? There's no reason to trash this planet, but having another rock to go to if something goes horribly wrong seems like a wise thing to do.

$.02

-Zipwow

Re:This is actually good news

[ice cream koan]

*ahem*

In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. Therefore... in the old Silurian Period the Mississippi River was upward of one million three hundred thousand miles long. Seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Mississippi will only be about a mile and three-quarters long.

There is something fascinating about science. One gets such a wholesome return of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

-- Mark Twain

^^^ Just about says it all about this bit of reasoning, don't you think?

Re:Dig?

[nagora]

Wouldn't it be feasible to simply dig onto the crust of Mars and provoking volcanoes?

It is not yet clear whether the interior of Mars has ANY "liquid" magma left or not. It is much smaller than Earth and has probably lost its internal heat already.

TWW

Re:Terraforming is good.

[TheNarrator]

Every civilization has been fasinated with exploring and the stars, this instinct is built into us to make us fulfill our destiny of serving as the reproductive system of the earth. This is the real purpose of humans in the eco-system. It's a shame more people haven't realized this and think that humans are somehow outside the earth's eco-system. Just like a fox doesn't know what its role in the eco-system is, so neither is it obvious to us.

I see milleniums full of humans reproducing the earth on dead planets throughout the universe. We've just got to make sure the earth doesn't die during child birth.

The 'Greenhouse Effect'

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a serious question.

The people in this forum who deny the 'Greenhouse Effect' (and whenever there's an article about the environment, there are plenty saying things like "We don't have enough data..." or "It's a bit arrogant to think that man can have an effect on the environment..." or "It's bad science...") how come they don't they come out and blast the science of terraforming a planet like Mars?

Re:This is good news for terraforming mars

[spammeister]

water will "burn off" more quickly in the practically non-existant Martain atmosphere. complex greenhouse gasses like flexocarbomethane (meh?) and wonderful CFC's that don't go into space and can actually withstand the constant hard radiation comign in from the sun without breaking up into smaller lesss useful bits.