Slashdot Mirror
Brine on Mars?
Bagels writes "A new article on MSNBC (coming originally from Space.com) reports that the both Rovers may have struck water in the form of brine. The Opportunity rover found hints of salty water in the trench that it dug, and scientists note that the Spirit rover is currently digging a trench of its own to investigate the soil that clings to its treads, suggesting the possibility of moisture. The brine would only be small amounts of water mixed with salt, which can exist in liquid form at very low temperatures. More images are available over at NASA's rover site." Reader
frovingslosh would like to add: "I'm just hoping that when you get around to posting one of the many stories that the rover has found mud on Mars that you might include a link to the slashdot article where I predicted this but got moderated as 'funny'." Done!
Tm
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Here's a New Scientist article from January which argues for the presence of brine.
It's never too late to have a happy childhood.
That's why they're not looking for water on the surface. Water mixed with rock, sand, or salt, or even just underground, would not evaporate.
The parent is right; the "+5 informative" grandparent is just wrong. We have known for some time that at least the north polar cap was composed mostly of water ice.
r _040123.html
References:
http://www.nature.com/nsu/030210/030210-9.html
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/express_wate
The same reason they are speculating that it can exist in liquid form at such low temperatures: the phase diagram of a solution can be radically different from the pure substance. In hand-waving terms, the attracion between the salt molecules and the water molecules increases the energy required to evaporate the liquid. This is why they are theorising that it is highly concentrated brine - because if it were not highly concentrated, it could not exist under the temperatures and pressures on Mars. I'm probably not being unrealistic in suggesting that the scientists have thought this all through before publishing the press release.
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
why the heck havent they toddled over to the face? :( ...cause they've already determined that the face (ready for a shock?) isn't actually a face.
No need to thank me, just not doing my (real) job.
"The very small particle size of Martian dust makes it likely that it sticks due to static charge. If the soil were moisture laden you would expect it to rapidly dry out and crust over (change appearance) on the wheels of the rover."
No. The amount they are talking about causing this is much much smaller than the amount it would require to saturate it to the point of an observable change in appearance after exposure.
It may even be the result of no water in it now but the result of residual salts left behind by existance of water at some point. Theoretically this could display these properties as well.
Well I never...
Then it is not likely to be enough moisture to bind the soil either. I still think it is lame speculation. You would think the thermal emission spectrometer could detect small amounts of water easily if it were there.
It may even be the result of no water in it now but the result of residual salts left behind by existance of water at some point. Theoretically this could display these properties as well.Residual salts would be expected to bind the soil (duracrust), but not bind the soil to the rover wheels.
an ill wind that blows no good
Indeed, I've found an abstract from the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference on the subject.
Someone here went over this already... the moons are so low and so small and orbit so quickly (and its so dark), that you probably wouldn't see them from the rover sites.
I could be wrong, and I'm too lazy to look up the article.
This space for rent.
Right.
m l.
The brine speculation is coming from people not involved on the project, which space.com is reporting uncritically. The news conference where the project scientists are presenting their information mention nothing about brine.
See the entry for Thursday, February 19, 2004 at http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/status.ht
HCG 50a = 2MASX J11170638+5455016
11h17m06.4s +54d55m02s
Gases do move into outer space. Gravity slows down the process, but it doesn't stop it. When you get to the outer atmosphere, the velocity of gas atoms and molecules follow a predictable statistical distribution, dependent on their atomic mass and average temperature. Many atoms and molecules will reach escape velocity, and diffuse away from the planet. What do you think happened to the atmospheric helium on Earth?
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Most of it probably has. One process could be groundwater carrying dissolved mineral salts being drawn to the surface by capillary action. The water evaporates into the very low pressure Martian atmosphere, leaving the salt as a deposit.
Similar processes take place on Earth where they deposit salt and iron oxides in deserts.
Best wishes,
Mike.
The published images from the microscopic imager are about 3cm accross.
(or about an inch and a quarter for the metrically challanged)
-- We don't understand software, and sometimes we don't understand hardware, but we can *see* the blinking lights
It is definitely a microscope - going down to 30 microns per pixel. A hair is around about 100 microns in diameter.
Sorry I don't have a precise magnification.
If there were things the size of microorganisms in the briny reaches, could we see them?
The objects seen in the ALH84001 meteorite were only between 20 and 100 nanometres (0.02 to 0.1 micrometres) and needed a scanning electron microscope to be seen. So MER can't hope to see them. Terrestrial bacteria are 2 to 10 microns (generally) in size - so the majority of them would also be invisible. There are some much larger bacteria; the largest known Epulopiscium fishelsoni is a whopping 250 microns in diameter.
But it should be remembered that this is not a biological microscope - it was designed for petrological work which rarely requires such extreme magnification.
Best wishes,
Mike.
There is also information about the rover, and science instruments on NASA's site, but these are extremely topical, but also good to look at first. So there you go.
Rather than having the rovers scratch the surface or look at billion year old craters what they should do is send a large lump of heavy metal (say, 500 lbs) to Mars and
There are already relatively recent craters to study:
http://www.martiansoil.com/archives/001276.php
Table-ized A.I.
Gases do move into outer space. Gravity slows down the process, but it doesn't stop it. When you get to the outer atmosphere, the velocity of gas atoms and molecules follow a predictable statistical distribution, dependent on their atomic mass and average temperature. Many atoms and molecules will reach escape velocity, and diffuse away from the planet. What do you think happened to the atmospheric helium on Earth?
Yes, Mars most likely used to have a thicker atmosphere but has dwindled to a lack of volcanic activity, evaporation of water, and leeching of atmosphere off into space. The gravity of Mars is not great enough to hold an earlth like atmosphere. One astrophysisit friend of mine did the calculations once. If you gave Mars an earthlike atmosphere, say by dumping comets on to the surface, it would last for about 10,000 years before bleeding off into space. Not long at all in geological time, but good enough to figure it into terraforming studies.
To take this one step further, things other than gases could also leave the atmostphere and enter space. Small spores enter the upper atmostphere and could be leaving the Earth's gravity. Some spores are highly durable and could survive in space indefinatly despite vacuum and radiation. Thus, we could have already colonated mars as spores leave our atmosphere, float across space, get caught by the other planet's gravity and fall to the surface. Or it could have happened the other way around and Mars populated the Earth with the first life. Similarly, one planet could be populating the region of space around them in such a way, so that life only needs to develop once on one world and could send out colonizing spores to bring life to suitable planets. At least, that was put forth in an article i read once. I keep meaning to do the calculations but never get around to it.
NASA already has some tangential evidence of permafrost on Mars, where it looks like molten rock has encountered subterranean ice and places where it looks like something is is seeping to the surface.
NASA did choose these landing sites for evidence of water in the recent past, so perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised that something is going on.
But I guess our best hope is to wait for Mars Express to point its instruments at the landing site. So fingers crossed until then!
Best wishes,
Mike.
The threads info and photo can be found here.
Could these be the worm tubes you are refering to? More on them here and here. The worm tubes are a heck of a lot larger than the microscopic images from the rovers. As mentioned in the linked articles, Arthur C. Clark, proposed the glass worm tubes idea.