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Mars Express Confirms Water on Mars
jki writes "So, finally: Through the initial mapping of the South polar cap on 18 January, OMEGA, the combined camera and infrared spectrometer, has already revealed the presence of water ice and carbon dioxide ice. This information was confirmed by the PFS, a new high-resolution spectrometer of unprecedented accuracy. The first PFS data also show that the carbon oxide distribution is different in the northern and southern hemispheres of Mars. The MaRS instrument, a sophisticated radio transmitter and receiver, emitted a first signal successfully on 21 January that was received on Earth through a 70- metre antenna in Australia after it was reflected and scattered from the surface of Mars. This new measurement technique allows the detection of the chemical composition of the Mars atmosphere, ionosphere and surface." On another note, NASA has gotten some sort of signal from Spirit, but it's still not fully functional.
...we're all still waiting for confirmation of bacteria and/or bacteria fossils. I certainly hope that NASA can establish good contact with Spirit again soon, and that Opportunity lands safely tomorrow!
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As a scientist, although I find it very interesting that they have "discovered" water on Mars, I do no think it is the ground breaking discovery that it has been played up as.
:-)
From the geological appearance water was always expected, Hydrogen and Oxygen are both abundant enough (in the early history of Mars - not in the atmosphere at the moment). H2O is the thermodynamic result.
Although the absence of water would almost certainly have procluded the existance of "life" on Mars, the existance of water is not, in itself, that startling a discovery.
It is important that scientific funding goes towards real science and not satisfying the public demand for fantastic revelations!
Finally, well done ESA for building a spectrometer that accurate, and getting it there
You know as of late it seems to me that NASA is just feeding us every little finding in morsel form. It feels like we are being baited with a carrot. This whole "we found water" thing is no exception. We go from hearing next to nothing to now hearing something "new" just about everyday. I understand they are grasping to get the American public "excited" once more about space exploration, but still. Water does not excite me.
"why don't you just slip into something more comfortable...like a coma!"
Does anyone have a comprehensive list of what the rovers are designed to deal with?
It may be time to return to a soft landing strategy.
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
Moderation: -0.66 Mildly Off-Topic
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I work in the oilfield operating a 2 tons monstrosity called an MWD. These things are used to transmit data from up to a 10 km deep hole and on the basis of this data the decision of which way to drill a well are made (oil wells are usually not vertical affairs these days). Multi-million dollar decisions are regularly made on a data from a transfer rate of less than 10 bps, 6 bps is excellent and transmission rates are often in the range of 0.5-3 bits per second. You would be surprised at how much system information can be crammed into that bandwidth if the programmers are clever. Incidentally, my tools use a modulation/demodulation scheme similar to that used on the Voyager probes, we just have to transmit through viscous mud with pressure instead of light across the solar system.
-------------------------------END--COMMUNICATION
Let the terraforming begin!
You may be joking but I think it's a good idea. I think the odds of finding life on mars is slim to nil. Right now they are fruitlessly running around hoping to find past traces of life.
Terraforming will be a long long process. I say we jump start it by tossing out some extremophile microbes and see what takes root. Scatter them around the water laden edges of the poles. Anything that produces organic compounds has got to be better than what Mars has now.
At this point we have some clue as to what kind of compounds and weather conditions exist on Mars. Let's set up some test beds here, genetically reengineer existing extremophiles and see if we can get something that grows.
i mean...I know they got limited bandwidth and all, but what sort of protocol do they use?
good lord, this is an incredibly geeky question, but I'm serious, i wanna know.
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
But why? In all seriousness what reason do we have to go to Mars? The moon is a much better astronomy platform since it has no atmosphere and lower gravity, plus it is much easier to get to.
So what purpose does going to Mars serve? I am a physicist btw, working on GLAST for what is is worth.
No. They have good resolution, but THAT good. Teh size landers we're sending now would be like one pixel if visible at all - you'd probably never find it, and if you did it wouldn't tell you anything useful.
Evidence for water activity on Mars comes (I think) mainly from pictures of geological formations: eroded hillsides, gravel bars, river canyons, etc. This is different: evidence of water ice currently in a particular location. Then again I thought that the presence of water ice on Mars was already pretty well established, but what do I know :-)
* And remember, it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e, but it's pronounced "Mozilla."
NIH syndrome. The Mars Express is European and most of the posters on /. are American.
>Why does every press release have to mention how they are doing it "better" than we Americans are?
Because we in the USA have made that the de facto standard for any press release. A better question might be "Why do Americans assume that when someone mentions another country, they are implicitly slamming the US?"
Seriously, all that flag-waving going on, and you read in the paper that Americans get upset when they see Canadians wearing maple leaf shirts. I suspect that subconsciously the Americans realize that all of the bluster and bravado really don't amount to much. Anyone with more than three neurons in their head must realize on some level that America is a parody of itself... if I was from another country I would make every effort to make sure people knew I wasn't from the US.
You treat global identity like a big football game, and root for 'our side', regardless of merit. And that's just sad.
Some say we should worry more about incoming asteroids wiping out all life on earth which would mean we should establish human colonies on the Moon, Mars and elsewhere to hedge our bets against such an occurance (could return to repopulate the planet after a time). Others say earth is heading for environmental disaster and the solution might be to leave it for lifeless places and artificial environments where we can do no harm. Others yet want us to think about overpopulation which could be solved by spreading out to other planets and while others say that sociopolitical causes are the main of hunger today, there is a limit to the number of people that can live here.
Why did people come to the New World, not just in Columbus' time but earlier from Asia? Why did they send their canoes to Pacific islands? The time will come that our reasons will match theirs. Today the reasons are not yet there and the will is only shared by a few but the reasons will likely become more apparent and the population more willing with time.
$#!^ happens, but why does it always have to happen to me???
Unfortunately, it is the government's responsibility to encourage new economic growth. Capitalism is great (at least I like it), but it requires that the government help it along every once in awhile. Since space is not a "safe" investment, no company is going to invest in it. Not to mention that Nuclear technologies are still carefully controlled. Thus the government is going to have to develop the initial technology, prove it, then give it away to companies who wish to make a profit on it.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
BTW, I was reading up on GLAST and came across this:
GLAST is a next generation high-energy gamma-ray observatory designed for making observations of celestial gamma-ray sources in the energy band extending from 10 MeV to more than 100 GeV.
Just out of curiosity, what would be able to hit the craft with 100 Giga-electron Volts of Gamma radiation? I could see getting hit with that much energy close to the Sun, but over interstellar distances?
Or perhaps I'm just overestimating how much energy 100 GeV is?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade