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Ice Lake on Mars
DecoDragon writes "The ESA's Mars Express discovered an ice lake on Mars. The ESA has a number of images and an explanation of what was found. The lake was found in an unnamed crater. The report says it can't be carbon dioxide, because carbon dioxide ice had already disappeared from the northern polar cap at the time the image was taken." Coverage from the BBC also available. From the article: "The team has also been able to detect faint traces of water ice along the rim of the crater and on the crater walls. Mars is covered with deep gorges, apparently carved out by rivers and glaciers, although most of the water vanished millions of years ago. "
Nice pictures. I think the article has one thing wrong, though. It should be possible for the ice to sublimate away above -103 F on Mars. Unless, of course this particular crater never gets that hot...
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
Lake hell. It looks like a swimming pool.
This is my sig. The post is over.
How about naming it "Vito Corleone"?
HI-RES JPG
/. would've got them instantly ;)
Size: 13,100 kb
How big do you want to make it!? Good thing they are on a phat pipe or
Have you metaroderated recently?
Does this mean sustainable Mars colonies are possible?
Random rants about technology: http://technorants.blogspot.com
If there were two of those craters that were semi-symmetrical it would be proof that men are indeed, descendant from mars. We build monuments to the fact.
Here's the photo: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050401.html
Agile Artisans
I'm curious about how long everyone thinks it will take before people are able to live on Mars. Now that we're pretty sure there's water there, it isn't a far stretch to believe that the planet is more than capable of supporting human life.
Excerpt taken from a chat session between ESA and NASA lead engineers: NASA: "Our Mars Rovers are both still going strong, moving at over an inch per day, and finding all sorts of great new types of reddish sand. I could possible arrange to send you some sam-" ESA: "WATER!! YEAH BABY!! WE pWnEd j0000!!! MWA AHHAHAHAHAH!!"
Romance advice authors have found evidence of men on Mars. No word on Venus.
Sustainable colonies are now possible, now that you won't have to deal with the expense of the colonists returning to Earth every winter to get in some ice fishing.
Where were you when the voynix came?
really. IANARS*, but how did previous missions miss that? haven't we already imaged most or all of the martian surface from orbit at a resolution high enough to see this glaringly obvious bullseye?
and if it wasn't there a few years ago, where did it come from?
* not a rocket scientist
- Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
so... how far do you think those rovers can drive before they die?
I guess we found the next landing spot, assuming they can either land it in the crater or drive into the crater after landing.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
Water => Life.
I'll be damned surprised if we don't find life on Mars now that we know there's free-standing water (ice) on the planet.
Our next responsibility is to try very very hard not to contaminate Mars with Earth-life, if we haven't already with our probes.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Dream on, I know...
OK, taking entries now for when the rover will drop through the ice during the Spring thaw. Please format entries to indicate specific time, day, month and eon.
Now that we know there's ice there, we can tell the Canadians and they'll get a hockey team up there ASAP.
That is all.
Thought I'd turn it into a poll.
...if nothing else that is one cool photo, definitely worthy of a place on my desktop.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Seriously, doesn't it look a little strange? This perfectly round circle in the middle of a hostile desert, and in it is this nice clean chunk of pure water.
Or maybe thats left over from the last people who visited Mars.
Just throwing out wacky ideas here...
Just move to Utah.
Free of Flash! Free of Flash!
The National Aeronautics United Space European Agency?
Where were you when the voynix came?
I for one welcome our, um... Aquatic martian overlords?
The existence of water on Mars raises the prospect that past or present life will one day be detected.
It also boosts the chances that manned missions can eventually be sent to the Red Planet.
Large reserves of water-ice are also known to be held at the poles on Mars.
We've known for a long time that there was water ice at one of the poles. We also know there's ice underground at lower latitudes. If there's surface ice in crater at a slightly lower latitude, why does that say anything about past or present life on Mars? It's not obvious to me that this has any serious implications for human exploration either. If the idea is to get drinking water and/or hydrogen from local supplies, then is it really that significant that it can be done at a slightly lower latitude? And if the goal of the mission is to look for past or present life, then the equator is clearly where you want to visit, not high latitudes. Likewise if humans were going to set up a permanent presence on Mars, they'd probably want to do it near the equator, where the cold wouldn't be so devastating.Find free books.
Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the double lock will keep;
May no brick through the window break,
And, no one rob me till I awake.
Well, I guess we know on which side of the tracks you live!
It looks more like an eye... ::Tinfoils his roof::
Maybe they ARE watching!
"most of the water vanished millions of years ago"
And they know this how?
...as to, in light of this article, why there has been such debate about whether or not there was at one point water on Mars. I mean seriously, did we start forming "intelligent" theorys about the planet before we even had high res images of the entire planet? Sorry but to me this makes absolutely no sense. Have we taken high res images of the moon? Shit maybe there IS a portion of it made of cheese after all! (Sorry but this is just really mindblowing to me that we had not previously discovered this. Like, you know, 10+ years ago)
For that matter, is Canada actually a sustainable colony?
Where were you when the voynix came?
We have a lot of water also here. How about oil?
Come on, if we can find oil on Mars we don't need to bother our islamic friends anymore.
Also, if there is life on Mars, then we need to teach them what a democracy is with our nukes.
"although most of the water vanished millions of years ago"
I love when we talk about things with such confidence, like we know what happened millions of years ago because we are so smart now.
Maybe a little humility in our speech would save face later when a new "better" theory comes out.
OK I'm getting fed up with this and I got off the wrong side of bed this morning so...
IANAL and IANAD are fine, but if you're only using an acronym ONCE and you have to expand it anyway to make it useful, DON'T use the fucking acronym. Maybe you think it's funny to use "IANARS" and expand it (badly) with a footnote, but that joke became lame 2 seconds after it was first used. And these days, it's lame, lame, lame.
Just say: "IANA rocket scientist", "IANA astronomer", etc and everybody understands and you don't have to say what you want twice, and nobody gets upset.
BTW, rocket science has got nothing to do with this. So your attempt at cleverness failed twice, in a big way.
"Our next responsibility is to try very very hard not to contaminate Mars with Earth-life"
Bollocks it is. Our next responsibility is to sell rights to do whatever you like with the land.
Deleted
haven't we already imaged most or all of the martian surface from orbit ...
Well according to Principal Skinner on the Simpsons it's already been mapped yes. When she wins the spelling bee he gives her a scale model of the planet mars...
Turns out, the surface actually looks like a to look red Kickball!
Yeah because ice is impossible to melt. But maybe one day we will develope some sort of heat technology.
Always
Never
Sometimes
Only with Hot-Grits
Gravity Sucks
What is that dark stuff on the edge of the ice? Maybe that is some sort of micro-organism growing...
Truthfully, it will happen when the benefits outweigh the costs. That doesn't mean we can't explore. I just don't see a need to stay.
Fools, that ain't water! Don't they know an dab of Oxy5 when they see it? Poor Mars is covering up a zit and you got it on camera....he won't be happy now. NASA get photoshoppin' on those pics before Mars finds out! He'll be kickin' them rovers off it's surface!
How can you keep finding the same thing?! Either mars has water or it doesn't.
Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity sit on the Martian regolith listening to the news.
They look at each other, then, after a beat, say, in unison, "ROAD TRIP!"
Cool beans. Let me find my swim fins and flame-thrower, and I'll be ready for da plunge. :)
I see you've found the sliding roof of my Martian lair!
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
It was all sucked down to earth in a 75,000 mile long waterspout thousands of years ago.
This would almost certainly involve infrared radiation. We certainly don't want to get involved with radiation: it is deadly and it will turn us into mutants! Besides, I don't think you will want to transform this frozen lake with heat. This process typically produces a lethal substance known as dihydrogen monoxide
Where were you when the voynix came?
It's so clean it looks like it could be recent. And what the hell is that black rock formation? The well head?
Is there anyone who knows whether or not this points to evidence of pooling of previously liquid water on the surface? Or could it be an aquifer bubbling water up to the surface instead? I sometimes find the claim that liquid water can't exist on Mars a bit spurious-- combine salination and the 1/100 of earth's air pressure, I don't see why that can't happen...
Come to think of it, this does remind me of You Only Live Twice. I never expected to find a reason to to colonize Mars starting with James Bond, but there it is.
Isn't it possible that whatever made the crater is also what brought the ICE? I mean, if it was a comet it could have made a very large and localized ice deposit; since they already mentioned that most of the ice had disappeared years ago. Well, that's just my little hypothesis, who knows how old that crater is!
Go ahead and call me unreliable; reliable is just a synonym for predictable.
I wonder, with all the ice frozen into the soil, if the pool we see here was created when the astroid which build the crater hit. (i.e. all the ice melted and pooled in the bottom of the crater, then froze) Rather then water that was left behind from the origional rivers and streams on mars.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
If the idea is to get drinking water and/or hydrogen from local supplies, then is it really that significant that it can be done at a slightly lower latitude?
Hoo boy! Man, when the Martian tour guide said don't drink the water, they mean don't the water! I haven't had runs like that since I drank tap water in Mexico city! And even then it didn't try to crawl out of the toliet... That god for hotel plungers.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Meanwhile, the Canadian Space Agency today released an artist's rendition of their new planned Mars Explorer Vehicle.
http://www.zamboni.com/machines/model700.html
They also announced that the expedition will be fully underwritten by the Canadian Hockey League.
Serving your airship needs since 1995.
Am I the only one that thinks this looks like the largest toilet bowl in the universe?
Grab the high-res overhead shot, and look at the bottom left edge of the ice patch. There's what a faint green discoloration which look like some sort of "tendrils" creeping up the side of the ice. Anyone have any theory what those are? Could they just be some sort of color distortion introduced by the camera? Or is this possibly some sort of organism?
Was originally an Astronomy Picture Of the Day. (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050720.html) This is a good site or backgrounds!
P.S. For other good/neat pics goto http://epod.usra.edu/archive.php3 (Earth Science Picture Of the Day)
The GEEK shall inherit the earth...
Mars operated very nicely on its own, but I'm sure we've managed to bring the lovely disease and other fun things over there in our rovers. Time will tell, but don't you think that we aren't supposed to be there for a reason?
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
Assuming that meteorites strike Mars fairly evenly, it should be possible to guess how old the ice lake is. It is certainly newer than the crater it is in (duh!) and from the lack of craters on the ice or in the crater the ice is in, there must be a very definite upper limit to how old it can be.
There are two possible sources for the water (an issue the ESA and NASA don't really discuss on their sites): We know there's an underground ice lake, for a start. It is possible that when the impact occured, it burst through to such a lake, melting the water temporarily. The water would reach the surface and re-freeze.
The second possibility is that the surface has indeed been warm enough for liquid water, despite evidence from those with martian meteorites. This is possible, as the meteorites may well have been from a cold part of Mars. It could well be that Mars couldn't -sustain- warm temperatures, so warm regions were geologically active regions. Water takes finite time to freeze, especially when flowing, allowing for water-formed features even outside regions that would have sustained liquid water.
The latter explanation would be great for those looking for life, but the ice-spray on the rim of the crater, along with the bulge of land under the ice, is more indicitive of the former. Rats!
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Watch it before someone mods you "-1 scurvy knave".
Where were you when the voynix came?
I can't imagine any mission to mars that didn't involve a nuclear reactor, it is the only practical way of providing heat for long periods of time. Any mission that involved actually drilling or digging for water ice, and processing material which is mostly earth with a small percentage of ice sounds like it would be very risky. If the process was not successful, it would mean the explorers would be dependant on the supplies they brought, which would make a return trip urgent. In this case, a nuclear reactor would be the only critical factor, since they water ice is right there to be picked up right on the surface. Food is another matter, but I suppose a 2 or 3 year stockpile of food would be necessary, while they experiment with greenhouses on the surface.
"
Our next responsibility is to try very very hard not to contaminate Mars with Earth-life, if we haven't already with our probes."
wrong, our responsibility is to expand the species.
By definition that means we must contaminate it.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
a few years after we find some way to make money by doing so Martian pr0n.
My blog
...Thats a friggin giant egg.
I for one welcome our giant egg dwelling martian overlords!
Are you proposing some sort of "heating machine"?
When you decrease the atmospheric pressure, you change the freezing and boiling point of water. Under pressure, water favors being a liquid. Without such pressure, the melting point and boiling point would come closer together.
For more info see this PDF (in particular, figure 5.1). It illustrates the triple point.
What is that dark stuff on the edge of the ice?
That's Mars.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
In the dark "bubbled" area at the top left (NW) corner of the lake, there appears to be a rectangular object. Its at about 6 O'Clock halfway between the border of the lake and the centre of the bubble area.
It's visible in both the overhead and oblique hi-res shots, it looks for all the world like a building.
Yes, I am no doubt nuts, but that's what it looks like to me.
Wanna go a step further, it looks like a geo-thermal power station, like you'd see in Iceland.
ummm...love them grits.
Start the reactor quaid....start the reactor
Wonder if they could take a picture of the "Mars face". Combined with altimeter data it would be very cool, you could have a 3D model of it.
I can't wait for them to reveal that, under extreme closeup, Mars is nothing more than Swiss cheese with some rust on it.
living on mars??
get real.. we cant even send a shuttle into space to the ISS without foam coming off and jeopardzing the crew, not sure where thats gonna lead. the old shuttles are done for -- they arent going to build new ones. they are using these until the new "capsules" are built to go into space and even these wont be for humans.
we've got at least 50 - 60 years before we even START to think about talking about sending humans to mars for anything.
In the nine months it takes to get to Mars, Mars moves a considerable distance around in its orbit, about 3/8 of the way around the Sun. You have to plan ahead to make sure that by the time you reach the distance of Mar's orbit, that Mars is where you need it to be! Practically, this means that you can only begin your trip when Earth and Mars are properly lined up. This only happens every 26 months. That is there is only one launch window every 26 months.
After spending 9 months on the way to Mars, you will probably want to spend some time there. In fact, you MUST spend some time at Mars! If you were to continue on your orbit around the Sun, then when you got back to where you started, Earth would no longer be where you left it!
Just like you have to wait for Earth and Mars to be in the proper postion before you head to Mars, you also have to make sure that they are in the proper position before you head home. That means you will have to spend 3-4 months at Mars before you can begin your return trip. All in all, your trip to Mars would take about 21 months: 9 months to get there, 3 months there, and 9 months to get back. With our current rocket technology, there is no way around this. The long duration of trip has several implications.
First, you have to bring enough food, water, clothes, and medical supplies for the crew in addition to all the scientific instruments you will want to take. You also have to bring all that fuel! In addition, if you are in space for nine months, you will need a lot of shielding to protect you from the radiation of the Sun. Water, and cement make good shielding but they are very heavy. All together, it is estimated that for a crew of six, you would need to 3 million pounds of supplies! The Shuttle can lift about 50,000 pounds into space, so it would take 60 shuttle launches to get all your supplies into space. In the history of the Shuttle, there have only been about 90 launches, and there are less than ten launches per year... So with the shuttle, it would take six years just to get the supplies into space. For this reason, you would probably need to develop a launch system that could lift more than 50,000 pounds into space. Even with a better launch vehicle, it is unlikely that you could launch the Mars mission all at once. You will have to launch it in several pieces and assemble them in orbit.
Second, you are going to be in space for an extended period of time, and there a physiological consequences of being weightless for long periods of time. For one, your muscles do not need to work as hard. In response to being used less, your muscles begin to shrink or atrophy. Remember, your heart is also a muscle, and pumping blood around your body is easier in the weightless environment of space, so your heart gets weaker as well. On an extended space voyage, your muscles might become so weak that it would be difficult for you to stand upright once you return to an environment where you are subject to gravity.
Just like your muscles have to do less work to move you around in space, your bones are not needed as much. The main function of your skeleton is to support the weight of your body. When you are weightless in space, your body realizes that the bones are not being used as much and they begin to lose calcium, and become more brittle. These are serious effects which may impair the ability of the astronauts to carry out experiments and tasks when they get to Mars, where they will be subjected to gravity again.
In order to study these physiological effects of
Water implies life *on Earth* but it does not imply life on other planets. To make assumptions based on our knowledge of a single planet is bad science.
Now, based on all we do know, then yes, water being present there makes life, at least as we know it, much more likely to be found. But it is no garantee because we have no factual evidence(alien life). So, it is all speculation.
For all we know, on some planet somewhere, water could be poison to life that developed on it. Until we find alien life, the truth is we just don't know. That's why we look everywhere.
You are who you are, let no one tell you different. But, never close your mind to a new point of view.
I know of just such a planet. Do some research here
Where were you when the voynix came?
if it has any depth (say half a meter or better), then yes. It will provide more than enough water/o2 for a small group for years to come if you assume recycling.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
yeah, into the core of the planet.
now get your ass to Mars. I saw a movie with some instructions.
Get it fast before rates rise and the bubble bursts....
As an added bonus - you can ice skate all year round!
"Quaid, Start the reactor"
-Kuato
Dude, you've got to stop watching so much hentai.
Where were you when the voynix came?
We need a reliable way to get to space. Then we have to quit switching from the Moon to space stations back to the Moon , etc.. Finally, if we really want to get there in the next 10 years, we need to get over the idea of trying to bring back the crew back. If we send them there on a one way trip for at least 10 years, possibly the rest of their natural lives, then we will get there in the next 10 years.
R -Americans had at one time, but all seem to now lack.
OTH, if we think that we are sending ppl there short trips, and back, then you have to deal with large amounts of radiation, food, O2, water all in several rockets. Basically, it becomes more difficult than simply building a stations there and leaving the crew there for at least 4 years ( ore more ).
Basically, some nation has to have the same courage, drive, and vision that civilizations/nations such as Vikings/Spanish/Italian/French/British/French/USS
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Well at least I see that there is more than one lake in the northern hemisphere. Well, really what I saw is a lot smaller than this one. I would call it a pond. But what amazed me is that it showed that water could really keep for some time in open air (or more correctly "near open air"??). Moreover, the pond was getting water from a spring over the hill behind it. Considering this, I think there should be more places where water could gather.
:)
BTW, If I well remember, the borders of the pound showed some gradation suggesting it was drying up. And,and and if I really didn't mess anything, the pond was mostly covered by a wall. But it was not a crater. Probably a subduction as the shape was more similar to an ellypse over an highland. Yes, and what most critics may bash me was that the pond was in small highland. Yes pressure should a lot less there. But it was there...
But please don't ask me for a proof. As I told once around here. I lost that frame. I hardly tried to pick it back but it was searching in a haystack as all my data went limbo back them. It is on one of MGS frames before Summer 2000. I worked with the original frames or with those processed by Malin's labs.
Besides I am not here claiming first discoveries. Just leaving a note. Maybe someone finds it or catches something more interesting. Like underground rivers or something else
They look like CG renders to me. One of the pictures has a comment pointing out that the depth has been exaggerated by a factor of 3 (not the anaglyph). So clearly at least one image is a fake. It's getting annoying just how processed images are these days without a suitable warning. Nowadays it seems acceptable, not just to apply filters or color transforms, but also use image based rendering to render from a new viewpoint.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
That's almost as crazy as some sort of "re-biggifier".
The spice will flow then?
A single data point doesn't allow any extrapolation.
I'm thinking that oxigen took a very long time to arrive on earth, being excreted by anearobic bacteria first. That there is any free oxigen at all on Mars implies some other process is at work.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
look, judging by what i've seen, mars is not a place i want to colonize. what with the gateway to hell and spawning demons. no thanks.
when the picture is on the screen because when you open it up again it will scare the shit out of you because it looks like a giant eye.
And the Brits. And certainly don't let them give you any blankets.
Come to think of it, any Martian life, if there is any, is screwed isn't it?
Well lets try not to blindly repeat the same mistakes. Lets boldly forge on to new and better mistakes.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
There is also a bright 2x2 pixel (30mx30m) thing at coordinates 2128x2636 in the 6 Mb shot. It's much brighter than the surroundings. Is it rock, ice, or camera artifact?
This is the post-ID4 world. Everyone now thinks that all you need to do to get into space is make sure the directions aren't upside down, point the joystick in the right direction, and pull.
After that, when you get into space (45 seconds later), you can destroy alien civilizations merely by connecting your Powerbook into their network.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Has anyone else noticed what appears to be a Constitution-class starship http://www.shiporama.org/constitution.htmpartly buried in rubble at the top left of the crater? Part of the saucer section and warp nacelles are clearly visible.
...I just came for the free beer.
Now that would make a lot of nice powder to ski Mars on!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
They could be a target for distant or orbital cameras, and they could be used as wings on a glider (why roll across Mars, inching your way across a hard and harsh terrain [marsain?] if you could take really long hops?)
They could provide shelter for astro/cosmo-nauts or become the roof of some base of operations.
Of course, the airbags used for the landings would have to be really BIG which bwould definitely affect the duration and height of the bouncing.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Are you sure that is not a General Products hull, type 1? A salvage mission might be in order!
Where were you when the voynix came?
unless it caused the crater... like an icy comet or asteroid.
Is there anyone who knows whether or not this points to evidence of pooling of previously liquid water on the surface? Or could it be an aquifer bubbling water up to the surface instead? I sometimes find the claim that liquid water can't exist on Mars a bit spurious-- combine salination and the 1/100 of earth's air pressure, I don't see why that can't happen...
That's not Mars! It's a space station!
This could turn out to be one of the most important discoveries of our time. Not only could this lake be a hot spot of fossilized life, which would be an earth shattering event (thinking of the religious and social impact), but it could be the keystone of extraplanetary colonization.
Have no doubt, while this may be page 4 news in major newspapers, it could be more impactful to human civilization than the computer, internet, automobile, and airplane combined once fully investigated. They may not find fish, but finding an algae or bacteria would shake the world to its core, and could have profound changes to how we live, from education to law to commerce.
If you are a religious fundamentalist, now is a time to be very afraid. If you are a Treky wanting to visit new worlds, and live on them, now is a time of great hope.
I8-D
The preponderance of evidence is that Mars has been cold and dry for a long time. Erosion features on Mars were probably the result of glaciers, wind, and the rare outbursts of flowing water. Olivine is the key. Mars is covered in huge areas of olivine.
Olivine degrades quickly in water, geologically speaking. The recent discoveries of Mars Express, Discovery, and Opportunity are tantalizing and beg for more exploration of the planet. Whether or not there was or is life on Mars and whether or not there was or is lots of water, it is still a worthy place to go. But it should not be contigent on life or water. I wish those who issue news releases would stop marketing Mars.
Could Mars have had dry ice glaciers and flows of liquid CO2 to cause the erosion? Unlikely, but I'm not a Martian expert. Maybe Mars was colder in the past.
I'm too lazy to provide Wikipedia links or otherwise. Google'm yerself.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
If you eat yogurt you can prevent">prevent montezuma's revenge. I suggest plain yogurt as anything with sugar in it will spoil much quicker.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
The NHL has already proven there is no such thing as a sustainable hockey league.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
Dont worry...
Opportunity will reach it by the time we have our first colony installed there.
I wouldn't get too excited about seeing a particular color in a space image. AFAIK every close-up image of other planets you see is a false-color composite. You can't really trust that the faint "green" discoloration you think you see is really green as it would exist here on Earth under strong sunlight and a thick nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere. Color is very relative.
I don't see what the big deal is; we already have one of these on Earth. In Oregon, to be specific . . .
There's something I've never understood about this quest for water on Mars.
First off, this "ice" thing doesn't seem like a big deal to me. When I was 8 years old I had a picture of Martian ice caps on my wall. (Yeah.. I was like that). So why is this a big deal? Because its at the bottom of a crater in a less than frozen area? How does that make life more likely? Clearly the bottom of that crater's pretty inhospitable too...
Secondly -- I've never understood why we don't look for water in a place I would think is the most obvious: in the periphery of the ice caps. Wouldn't liquid water most likely be in the place where the caps melt? It seems highly likely that Martian ice caps perform similarly to Earth's ice caps -- sloughing off ice into a temperate zone.
Why do Mars' frozen poles not get more attention in this quest for water?
Anyone?
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Ripper: Mandrake, have you ever seen a commie drink a glass of water?
Mandrake: No, Jack. I can't say that I have.
Ripper: Vodka. That's what they drink, isn't it? Never water?
Mandrake: Well, I believe that's what they drink, Jack. Yes.
Ripper: On no account will a commie drink water? And not without good reason?
Mandrake: I don't quite see what you're getting at, Jack.
Ripper: Water. That's what I'm getting at. Water, Mandrake. Water is the source of all life. Seven-tenths of the earth's surface is water. Why, do you realize that 70% of you is water?
Mandrake: Odd.
Ripper: And as human beings, you and I need fresh, pure water to replenish our precious bodily fluids.
Mandrake: Yes.
Ripper: Are you beginning to understand?
Mandrake: Yes.
Ripper: Mandrake. Mandrake, have you ever wondered why I drink only distilled water, or rain water, and only pure grain alcohol?
Mandrake: Well, it did occur to me, Jack, yes.
Ripper: Have you ever heard of a thing called fluoridation, fluoridation of water?
Mandrake: Yes, I have heard of that, Jack, yes.
Ripper: Well, do you know what it is?
Mandrake: No.
Ripper: Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous commie plot we have ever had to face?
How's the fishing? I'll bet there's some good Crappies in there. I'll be out in the back yard rigging retro-rockets onto my icefishing shack if anyone needs me.
After looking at the highest resolution color version I noticed that you can see the square patterns of the pixels, or more likely sets of compressed pixels. This happens often with JPEG images that have been compressed a little too much. Each square of X pixels gets compressed separately and some information is lost, so that when the same square is uncompressed it doesn't always blend smoothly into the surrounding squares with regard to color and lightness. I believe this is referred to as posterization, a loss of smoothness in the color transitions where it changes in steps that can be clearly seen rather than in tiny increments.
If you look at the patterns of squares, the image seems to have been tilted counter-clockwise about ten degrees, so the vertical and horizontal lines aren't straight up and down or left and right. Oddly enough, the long green "tendrils" seem to line up very well with the lines of squares, especially the big one in the bottom left. Notice how the tendril is very straight. Looks like those areas were supposed to be slightly blue-greenish but because of the compression the color jump is a little too much and they appear to be somehow different than the colors that surround them. I don't think they were meant to be that color.
You can see the posterization, or compression artifacts, most clearly in the transitions between light and dark colors. And you'll only see it when you view the image at 100% pixel-for-pixel on your screen. If you have Photoshop or Elements open the levels dialog and drag the black slider up to about 200. The green areas will turn black and it will become very apparent that they are perfectly straight in many areas. There are some horizontal ones and some vertical ones and some nice 90-degree angles in there. Life forms of course do not make perfectly straight patterns, especially on a large scale.
The Book of Genesis is only one religion, Christianity which I assume you are a part of.
The question becomes, what would it take to *disprove* Christianity?
If everything in the bible is a metaphor, then it's up to human interpretation, which means that there is always *some* way to change the religious meaning of the Bible.
I don't think it is at specific temperatures that things sublimate, I believe it is at certain pressures. So water at 1 atmosphere will never sublimate, at no matter which temperature. This can be seen on the state plots present in one of the other posts. You can see at certain pressures, the solid state touches the gaseous state, making possible sublimation, where at other pressures, the solid state doesn't directly touch the gaseous state, making sublimation impossible.
Having looked at the "full resolution" JPEG, I see zero impact craters on the ice. Which is good, because we KNOW there is water ice near the poles (which is where this is), and it'd be really darn surprising to find water ice old enough to have impact craters on it. It should be relatively stable this far north, but not THAT stable--i.e., it's probably very young, as in still being modified by deposition and sublimation.
p df
It's not news that water ice exists in north pole craters:
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/LPSC99/pdf/2026.
We should totally go logans run here and build an awesome dome over the thing. We must make sure noone lives past 30 years old though... I know, we can use crystal indicators on their palms! ohlssonvox
Mars is covered with deep gorges, apparently carved out by rivers and glaciers, although most of the water vanished millions of years ago.
Also known as evaporation, though not as dramatic.
According to TFA: The colours are very close to natural, but the vertical relief is exaggerated three times
This would mean that they are computer generated images, probably combining radar and visual data.
I would like to see some kind of symbol imprinted on (one corner of ) such pictures, to make it clear they are computer generated. It's getting harder and harder to distinguish them from real pictures. I know that the so-called NASA/ESA pictures of black holes and such are just artist impressions, but the media call them pictures, and ordinary folks don't know better. (Sorry for the rant, had to get that off my chest)
"Ice lake" could mean anything. The article mentions water ice specifically.
we cant even send a shuttle into space to the ISS without foam coming off and jeopardzing the crew...
What's this "we" stuff, kemosabe? Last private space launch I saw didn't have any of this "foam" stuff you're talking about.
Oh, you mean government space launches! Built by the lowest bidder, but only if they build it in a dozen different "marginal constituencies" as the Brits say, paying off campaign donors and other vote-generating schemes, making sure that various politicians get "in the pocket" for future votes, and other games of pork barrel politics which have absolutely nothing to do with actual space flight.
Oh, that's right, the private space flight efforts have been blocked for decades by bureaucratic red tape. You might not have heard about them. Indeed, it does seem as if these absurd bricks called "shuttles" are the only spacecraft you believe exist.
You might find two books quite interesting. _Kings of the High Frontier_ and _Net Assets_. The latter is available online I'm sure, but I don't think Pulpless.com where _Kings_ was available is functional any more. Bummer.
As for medical research, well, get out of the way and let those who are interested go give it a try! Volunteers? $10K for anyone who will live a year in space, free tuition to online University of Phoenix while in orbit? What a great idea and CHEAP compared to a NASA astronaught.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
Seems to me if we could suck up the pollution we create every day using fossil fuels we could have a greenhouse effect large enough to melt the icein lets say, six months... Oh wait the H3 Hummer is out, more like 4 months. We are not all made of stars.