Ice Detected Underneath Mars' North Pole

TheSync writes "A Reuters/Yahoo story says University of Arizona and Russian scientists have detected water ice uniformly distributed in the soil of Mars' north polar regions. The amount of hydrogen detected indicates ice of 80% to 90% of soil volume. Data was used from the Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey." It's worth noting that their study only detected large amounts of hydrogen; so much hydrogen that ice is figured to be the only form it could be in, although I kind of like the idea of Mars' pole covering a huge pocket of hydrogen gas.

Comments

Does it constitute life? Tough call

[mao che minh]

I believe that we will find evidence of long dead past life and not presently living organisms in this region of the Martian surface/sub-surface in the near future. Successful life tends to leave behind rather noticable evidence, evidence that we would probably have detected by now.

Then again, if you were to use life on Earth as an example, you could argue that life can always persevere in the presence of water (from thermal vent-driven ecosystems devoid of energy from the sun, to environments that have been trapped under ice near the artic circle for a hundred years).

Re:Does it constitute life? Tough call

[macragge]

If its anything like the movies then NASA will send Pauly Shore and Sean Astin to go dig a hole on mars. After digging for several months they will find a little green man (played by Brendan Fraser.)

Astin and Shore will dress it up in a space suit, in order to trick NASA officials into beliving that its the forign exchange cosmonaught.

Re:Does it constitute life? Tough call

[timeOday]

My first thought was pretty similar - if this leads to finding e.g. bacteria fossils, how exciting is that? Is mars far enough from earth that this would indicate life is probably "all over" the universe, or might that mars life have a common source with our own?

Re:Does it constitute life? Tough call

[MadCow42]

Don't forget the theories about an ecosystem being present in Lake Vostok, several miles below the surface of Antarctica.

As cool as it would be to find out (along with the scientific significance of the data), should we really contaminate that ecosystem if it exists? As much as we try not to, any intervention would upset a potentially fragile system.

MadCow.

Re:Does it constitute life? Tough call

[aarondyck]

I personally believe that any discovery of life larger than bacteria would lend large credence to evolutionary theory. While the majority of people are now convinced of evolution, there still remain pockets of faithful that follow creationist theory. A discover of a developed life form on another planet, however insignificant, would give undisputable proof of the ability of life to develop and adapt to the circumstances it finds. Bacteria found in this region, however, would prove very little, as bacteria can be found everywhere, including meteors that (no doubt) have crashed onto the surface of mars for years (as they have the surface of earth). The proof would be in the fact that this provides a link to the growth of multi-celled organisms that were able to adapt to conditions without any outside forces at work (i.e. man-made laboratories). This would proove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that life on earth could have stemmed from the same methods. Really, the implications are astounding.

Re:Does it constitute life? Tough call

[ml10422]

> "The proof would be in the fact that this provides a link
> to the growth of multi-celled organisms that were able
> to adapt to conditions without any outside forces at work
> (i.e. man-made laboratories). This would proove, beyond
> a shadow of a doubt, that life on earth could have
> stemmed from the same methods."

Unfortunately, at least if you live in Kansas, creationists don't share your "without any outside force" premise. No evidence from the natural world matters to those who believe in the supernatural.

Re:Does it constitute life? Tough call

[Quothz]

I think it's unlikely that evidence of extraterrestrial life will change too many people's minds. I think most folks who are gonna be convinced, have been. As far as fun games like logic and reason go, well, good luck.

This Wired article points out the fact that, even during the middle ages, Christian scholars found that extraterrestrial life would not seriously challenge their faith. You can bet these guys weren't big advocates of evolution, either.

I'll also mention that the Pope is an evolutionist, also noted in the article, although he almost certainly believes in creationism, as well.

Cheers -- Quothz

Re:Does it constitute life? Tough call

[Mac Degger]

Doesn't matter; the fact that life was sustainable on two planets opens up the possibility to doubters that there could be life on more. The counter-anthropic principle states that we aren't special in the universe anyway, so if we find evidence to back it up, then there you go.

Re:Does it constitute life? Tough call

[cmeans]

Doubters won't have a problem continuing to doubt. If life is discovered on Mars, then they'll just say that life is unique to this solar system.

They've already stuck their heads in the sand, logical arguements aren't the way to convince them of anything.

Re:Does it constitute life? Tough call

[aarondyck]

I would beg to differ. The largest creationist organisation in the world, namely Answers In Genesis, is based out of Acacia Ridge in Australia. This would not tend to agree with your 'united states' theory. Yet another (noticeable) victim to the idea that the world revolves around america. Actually, it revolves around the sun!

Re:Does it constitute life? Tough call

[dragons_flight]

Don't forget the theories about an ecosystem being present in Lake Vostok, several miles below the surface of Antarctica.

As cool as it would be to find out (along with the scientific significance of the data), should we really contaminate that ecosystem if it exists? As much as we try not to, any intervention would upset a potentially fragile system.

Something most people don't know is that Vostok is not one of a kind. It is merely the largest of approximately 70 lakes under the primary Antarctic ice sheet, identified by radar imaging. Because it is so large, it is likely that it has been liquid for a large portion of the 40+ million years that Antarctica has been glaciated, thus giving plenty of time for evolution and the development of a novel ecosystem. Whether that ecosystem is "fragile" is anybody's guess, but whatever bacteria live down there do so in a very large (one the largest lakes on Earth) and unfriendly swimming pool.

Incidently there will be no fish in Lake Vostok. Subglacial lakes of this kind form under mature ice sheets. When an ice sheet grows to around 3 or 4 km, it becomes so thick that it can no longer effectively dissipate the slow outflow of heat from the Earth's interior. The result is that the ice sheet actually melts from the bottom. This water, combined with melt from friction as the ice sheet overruns rock, provides the source of the water that accumulates in low spots and forms subglacial lakes. The lubrication such water provides greatly enhances ice flow rates and limits the maximum thickness of glaciation.

Anyway, this means that any life that is present in Vostok today must have survived in the soil underneath a growing glacier for millions of years until the ice sheet was large enough to trap sufficient geothermal heat that liquid water could occur and pool into the form we see today. Hence it is very unlikely that we would find anything more advanced than bacteria down there, though it certainly would be interesting if there was more advanced life down there.

Re:Does it constitute life? Tough call

[Danse]

Because it makes it easier for people to get along and not kill each other so much if they aren't always bickering over "my god can kick your god's ass!" type stuff.

Re:Does it constitute life? Tough call

[fenix down]

The idea that there might not be any other life out there isn't sticking your head in the sand, it's a valid theory, just working from a different philosophy. Since there's no evidence that life has formed from scratch more than once, it's not impossible that it was a incredible, once-in-a-thousand-universe chance. If we knew exactly how it happened the first time, then you could figure out how likely something like that would be, but we have basically no information about any of this, on so many different levels. We have a reasonable bet that what happens once happens again, but if you're not willing to jump on that in every situation, you want some evidence.

The thing that would really matter with life on Mars is if you could prove that it started entirely independent from earth. If you just find something that gets to a common getentic root with earth bacteria 2 billion years ago, then you proved cross-pollenation between planets, which is cool, but if you find somthing else, that would be enough for me to feel pretty confident of us finding a green guy within a few dozen light years. I just don't feel confident making assumtions based on a statistical sample of one.

Re:Does it constitute life? Tough call

[Golias]

Maybe computer-building life only arises on one out of every 50 galaxies. However, from the Universe's perspective, that is a lot of smart life, for there are billions of galaxies.

Fair enough, but are we likely to reach beyond our own galaxy before our extinction? The space between us and Andromeda is quite daunting when the physical speed limit is "c."

Re:Does it constitute life? Tough call

[DaemonGem]

The idea that there might not be any other life out there isn't sticking your head in the sand, it's a valid theory, just working from a different philosophy. Since there's no evidence that life has formed from scratch more than once, it's not impossible that it was a incredible, once-in-a-thousand-universe chance.

There is a general flaw in your argument, in that we have only had any kind of technology on two objects in space: Our Moon and Mars. Granted, we have had probes pass by other planets, but still, they are still within our solar system, which only constitutes a microscopic fraction of the size of the universe. Now, I would say it is a very selfish argument to say that we have not, on the two extra-terrestrial objects we have been on, found life, that it does not exist anywhere in the Universe. The Universe is vast, spanning billions of lightyears. Can you truly say that The Moon and Mars are an accurate cross-section of the universe, and that if life doesn't exist there, it doesn't exist anywhere? Also, there's no proof that all life evolves as ours has. Though it may sound rather "Star Trekky" of me, I cannot imagine that all life in the Universe is biological in nature. Finally, if I may quote Calvin and Hobbes: "The surest sign that there is other life in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us." -Calvin and Hobbes.

-Dae

Re:Does it constitute life? Tough call

[jeff_bond]

There is a general flaw in your argument, in that we have only had any kind of technology on two objects in space: Our Moon and Mars.

Um, we've landed stuff on Venus and an asteroid called Eros

Jeff

Re:Does it constitute life? Tough call

[SnowDog_2112]

A discover of a developed life form on another planet, however insignificant, would give undisputable proof of the ability of life to develop and adapt to the circumstances it finds.

As someone who grew up in a fundy Christian household, I can tell you it will have zero impact on most of those people.

Going from their Bible, literally, you'll see nowhere that says Earth was the only planet created, or imbued with life. In fact, I remember (in my youth) having conversations with people, and debating the possibility of what would have happened on other planets; if life had been created there, had they passed their Garden of Eden test, etc.

In fact, it made for a great little argument against UFOs -- imagine some other planet out there, that never fell from their garden of eden. They're still cool with God, chatting him up like Adam and Eve used to, and he says, "No, stay away from Earth. They're evil. We're working on fixing them up, give us a couple thousand years." "Oh, sure God, no prob."

You could go to Mars and come back with a green-furred 12-legged creature with purple antenna and it wouldn't shake the belief system of most of the fundies out there.

Re:Does it constitute life? Tough call

[Anonymous Cow herd]

How about we send all three to Mars to dig a hole, and leave Pauly Shore in it when they leave?

Re:Does it constitute life? Tough call

[bill_mcgonigle]

Since there's no evidence that life has formed from scratch more than once, it's not impossible that it was a incredible, once-in-a-thousand-universe chance.

It's not impossible, but it violates Occam's Razor.
There are two possibilities:
1) the Earth is very ordinary
2) the Earth is the only thing of its kind in the universe.

No matter what exclusion criteria are used, option 1 has the better odds, because option 2 has the lowest possible odds. So, without any further data, we should assume option 1 to be true, as a working hypothesis.

Cool.

[reaper20]

All we need to do now is send Schwarzenegger up there to turn on that ice melting machine.

Uh, yeah, so?

[AJWM]

Considering that Mars has permanent polar ice caps (the permanent part is water ice, there's a CO2 ice part that expands in the winter), this is hardly a surprise.

This will be great for tavel

[confused philosopher]

However, this hydrogen is something that the next generation will get to use, not mine. We need to figure out if we still have what it takes to get to the Moon, when the Chinese try next year.

Ummm.

[cybermace5]

Oh...kay. Call me strange, I've never really considered a "big pocket of trapped hydrogen gas on Mars" much of a turn-on, but to each his own.

Re:Ummm.

[cybermace5]

Well.

That would only work if, like the Hindenberg, Mars was placed in Earth's oxygen-rich atmosphere.

By the way the whole Hindenberg disaster was caused by the compounds infused into the outer covering: powdered aluminum and iron. Was supposed to eliminate static. Actually caught fire itself in a static discharge and...well, read up on thermite.

hmmmm. . .

[thexaspect]

so when does the mad rush to build your own hydrogen farm on mars start? selling tickets on my spaceship! but seriously, now we have the possibility of being able to send a manned mission there, and then they can gather their own fuel for the way back! well, once we figure out that whole hydrogen fuel cell engine. . . or something. . .

Re:hmmmm. . .

[BrainInAJar]

You don't need a fuel-cell engine.

Rockets right now burn hydrogen and oxygen together to create thrust...

They could use solar power to electrolyze the water, and collect the gasses for fuel. No need to perfect the fuel cell.

I knew it!

[Anonymous Coward]

This confirms my belief that Santa Claus could indeed be living on Mars.

Yup

[mao che minh]

Yup, we have known that the Martian poles freeze over seasonally. The dispute has been over whether or not the ice was composed of all CO2, largely of CO2 (like the Martian ice we have found elsewhere), or of the hydrogen variety.

Re:Yup

[AJWM]

What part of "permanent" did you miss? Yes, they grow seasonally as the temperature drops enough for CO2 to freeze out. But in summertime water ice is the only candidate (barring something really exotic).

Come, this has been pretty much known since the first spectroscope was pointed at Mars, and known with confidence since the Mariner and Viking missions.

Not that it hurts to cross check to rule out oddball theories, but why act like this was a surprise? Perhaps the concept is new to Arizonans, but you'd think the Russians would be familiar with permafrost.

Big deal

[Anonymous Coward]

We have plenty of water here, I read somewhere that like 60% of the earth's surface is water. Why do we need to get water from other planets? Looks like a waste of time to me.

Re:Martians

[tankdilla]

We can also hypothesize that they discovered slushies millions of years before us, and that they would've given us a run for our money at the Winter Olympics.

Test it.

[inertia187]

If they want to prove the voracity of their claim that copious amounts of hydrogen must be water, why don't they try this experiment on Earth. NASA did this with the Galileo space probe. It was equipped with some kind of spectrometer that was supposed to detect particular elements. When it was far enough away, they tested it on Earth to see if they'd get the readings they were expecting from other planets.

Re:Test it.

[kfg]

Well one thing they know for a fact. There is no free hydrogen on Mars. None. Any gaseous hydrogen would literally just wander off into space.

So if they're detecting hydrogen in any quantity it must be locked up in something on the surface and that something must leave the hydrogen still detectable.

The list is fairly short and water is at the top of it.

Number two on the list, by the way, is organic compounds.

KFG

Re:Test it.

[dcmeserve]

If they want to prove the voracity ...

Ahem. That's veracity :) :) ...

...of their claim that copious amounts of hydrogen must be water, why don't they try this experiment on Earth. NASA did this with the Galileo space probe. It was equipped with some kind of spectrometer that was supposed to detect particular elements.

We're talking two completely different kinds of instruments here.

What this article is referring to (though not explicitly) are measurements taken with neutron detectors. As the spacecraft fly (at relatively low altitude) over the planet, they are bombarded by neutrons that can be assumed to come uniformly from the top N meters of the soil (don't know what N is exactly, might be on the order of 10). When the craft detect a significant drop in the number of neutron hits, it can be assumed that the neutrons are being absorbed by something in the soil. As hydrogen is the best neutron absorber among the most likely elements in the soil, the absorber can be assumed to be a bunch of hydrogen -- which can in turn be assumed to be a part of a bunch of water/ice. If there's a big dip in the neutron levels, then there's probably a lot of water down there. The trick is calibrating the measurements just right to get an accurate measure of how much water there is.

A spectrometer, on the other hand, measures a broad spectrum of light frequencies. When there are spikes or dips at particular frequequencies that correspond to known absorption or emission wavelengths of various elements, then the instrument has detected that element. But it pretty much only works for a gas. Absorption patterns in reflected light from a solid surface can give some info about the minerals on the surface, but it's not as clear-cut a signal as you get from a gas.

So... uh, er, now that I look at your post again, I see you are probably not actually confusing these two instruments... but then, some of the other respondents to your post are, so I will continue... :)

Anyways, there'd be little point in running this experiment with Eath, in terms of answering the question of whether the hydrogen is really water. We already *know* that the hydrogen on earth is mostly in water, the fact that we could detect that hydrogen with an orbiting neutron detector really wouldn't tell us much about the likelihood of detected hydrogen on Mars being water.

Besides, as you can see from my description, there are already a number of assumptions being made in order to get at the "it's hydrogen" result in the first place. For example, a dip in neutron readings could also come from a simple lack of radioactive elements in that portion of the crust, though this is unlikely. Basically, the best probability for an explanation of these results lies with subsurface water. The only real confirmation will come when we go down there and dig it up. :)

Oh, and a spectrometer won't be able to do the confirmation; it can't see below the surface.

So they have water...

[brilinux]

But honestly, who cares? To have life, you
need earth, fire, and sky, too. They
obviously don't have earth, as we are on Earth,
and that is Mars. They can't have fire, as their
minimal sky doesn't have enough oxygen.

So they don't have the four elements necessary
for life. I'm just going to stay here and figure
out the first two digits of pi on my abacus.

This just in

[Sammich]

Astronauts have again found ice on mars which scientists speculate could be evidence of life, just as they have on previous missions.

Dj

Hydrogen is light

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I has to be pure hydrogen.

We all know that it is a very light gas and would rise to the north pole... duh!

water snobs

[brer_rabbit]

So now we have purified water, mineral water, distilled water, rain water, tap water, spring water, and now martian water. It's a Bobby Boucher dream come true.

Testing that theory...

[An Onerous Coward]

I find it somewhat unlikely that a huge pocket of hydrogen might be underneath the surface, but there's a simple way to check. Just crash a probe into the planet. If Mars ruptures and starts lurching around the solar system like an untied balloon, the theory might have some merit.

This avenue of research should be explored as soon as possible. This is in keeping with my conviction that our scientific dollars should be spent in the most entertaining ways possible.

Uh, CowboyNeal, hydrogen gas for what?

[aechols]

...although I kind of like the idea of Mars' pole covering a huge pocket of hydrogen gas.

You need three things for combustion. Fuel, got that. Ignition source, sure. Oxygen, don't got that. Maybe you could process it with the CO2 in the atmosphere to make hydrocarbons, oxygen, or even alcohol, (for the astronauts of course) but that would require energy to produce and there wouldn't be enough oxygen to fully combust any of those products. Hydrogen alone isn't good for much. Maybe if you sent a factory over used solar power to generate stuff (which was part of somebody's plan to get to Mars...) it could be useful, but just hydrogen has limited usefulness. I doubt it would be worth shipping back to earth to fuel the hydrogen economy either unless we're looking for hydrogen prices like $100 per cubic meter, cubic foot, mole, or whatever. Yeah, that'll work...

Could be good....

[Eric(b0mb)Dennis]

Ice = Oxygen/Hydrogen

Oxygen/Hydrogen = rocket fuel

Rocket Fuel = launching point for further operations from the Martian surface... Also, it would make it unneccessary to haul water to and from mars (saves a lot of cost if we ever decide to inhabit the planet)

If we ever decide to go to mars, i hope to see some permanent settlement.. no use in going and coming back in 3 days

Re:Could be good....

[NewtonsLaw]

Ice = Oxygen/Hydrogen

Oxygen/Hydrogen = rocket fuel

But ice = spent rocket fuel, where are you going to get the energy to:

a) melt the ice into water
b) split the water into H2 + O ??

Don't get too excited about solar power, Mars is a long way from the sun and existing solar panel technology is heavy, bulky and relatively low-powered. You'd need to take tons of them to Mars to make any reasonable amount of water into rocketfuel by the time you were ready to go home.

Where there's ice, there's...

[ansak]

HOCKEY!

And Canada will be happy to represent Earth in the Solar Cup Hockey championships.

I wonder if Don Cherry will whine as much about the Martian way to play as he tends to do about Europe?

Can't be gas

[tuxlove]

It can't be hydrogen gas trapped beneath the polar caps. Molecules don't get much smaller or lighter than H2, and it surely would have wormed its way through any polar layer and into the atmosphere by now. And I can't imagine that it would be cold enough for the hydrogen to be in liquid form, so that pretty much leaves water as the most likely candidate.

Note that IANAP (I Am Not A Physicist), so no flames please for anything I might have overlooked.

"Evidence to back it up"

[jpsowin]

Isn't it funny that you are saying that you need evidence to back up a principle? I could make up a whole bunch of "principles", and then call everyone else "doubters" and, heck, I could publish a public education textbook.

Good...good

[NightWulf]

They found the ice I planted...soon they'll find the lost civilization, then the obilesk on europa, and then unlock the mysteries of artificial intelligence. Creating a new super race of robots that will wage war on them and enclose them in a reality emulating matrix to power their metal bodies. Yes...it's all coming together nicely...muhah hah hah

The laws of physics says it is damn good...

[WegianWarrior]

While going into space on top of a roman candle is a horrible inefficent way of doing things, it's the technology we master today. What technology we master when we are setting up a launchfacility on Mars we can only speculate about, but lets assume that the elsewheredrive isn't yet avilable and we have to make do with LH and LOX (liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen).

However, it'll cost far less, energywise, to launch something from Mars than from the earth. Mars has a escape velocity of just 5.03 km/s^2, compared to earths 11.19 km/s^2. And as we all know that Ek = m*v^2, the energy needed to deliver something into interplanitary space from Mars will be roughtly 1/5th of what it'll cost us to launch it from the surface of the earth (launching from the moon will cost under 1/20th of launching from the earth - but there is no readily avilable supply of water on the moon as far as I know).

Having seen that there is indeed some sence in building and launching oldfashion chemical rockets from the surface of the red planet, lets consider just how to split the water into oxygen and hydrogen, before we compress/freeze it. This takes, as pointed out, a whole lot of energy. Fortunatly however, bang smack in the middle of our solar system we got a gigantic nuclear furnace pumping out more energy than even the western civilisation can waste. True, Mars is somewhat farther from the earth, and the Solar irradiance is just 589.2 W/m^2 (or about 43.1% of earths), but Mars contains large open deserts and has less problems with clouds than earth do. Large solar farms should solve the problem, and I'm fairly sure that Mars itself can provide the necesary materials to construct them.

All information about Mars in this reply is taken from Nasa's Mars Fact Sheet.

Creationist until proven wrong?

[RALE007]

You choose to believe creationism until proven wrong. The only problem with that is it is, and will always be, impossible to prove creationism wrong. I could say I choose to believe Japanese speaking kangaroo's with badass superpowers live in black holes and I will continue to believe this until proven wrong. It's a pretty safe statement considering it's impossible to prove wrong. I am not saying creationism *is* wrong or you and others should not believe it, but I think the statement "until proven wrong" is illogical. I am not an athiest like many evolutionists, and I am also not monotheistic like most creationists. I like to think of the universe and "god" in monistic terms, that is existence as a whole is "god", not some guy on a cloud. From this point of view, IMHO, evolution is a form of creation, and in my simple mind, makes the evolution and creation debate kind of silly. To come back on track though, belief in something that cannot be proven wrong because it hasn't been proven wrong yet is not a method of choosing beliefs I would recommend to you or anyone unfortunate enough to read what I have to say.