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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...
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/. would've got them instantly ;)
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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?
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Here's the photo: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050401.html
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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.
Since the crater is 23 miles across and close to a mile deep, the patch of ice, judging from the picture, is actually fairly good size. Not enough for sustainable human development, but enough to demonstrate that there is water here and there.
I wonder what a core sample would show?
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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.
:)
Except for, you know...the sub zero temperatures and the lack of oxygen and all...
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.
Odds are, we could live on Mars right now -- learning to grow crops could take some work, but everything else is actually fairly straightforward. You can make bricks from the soil, make O2 from the atmosphere, mine water out of the soil, etc.
Now, when *will* we live on Mars is something else. The answer is pretty much either "a couple of years after a major government decides it's worthwhile" or, more likely, "a few years after we find some way to make money by doing so".
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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.
The crater sides themselves seem pretty severe and pretty deep, I'd think driving (at least the current rovers) down would be a VERY long shot.
:-]
The latitude could be a problem too, albeit for a different reason - it's thought the ice is there because there's so little sunlight getting to the crater's floor.
This hypothetical rover had better have an RTG (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator), 'cause solar panels defintely aren't going to work too well...
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Well, the only evidence of life is that which exists on Earth. On Earth, where there be water, there be life. The statement "All life needs water" is supported by the evidence. The evidences scope, however, is rather narrow.
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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?
Well, this patch of ice looks like it has a surface area of what, 75 square km? All of Mars is about 145 million square km, so we're talking about 0.00005% of the surface -- I can kinda see how that might take a while to notice.
Basically, planets are big -- Mars may be smaller than the earth, but since there's no ocean, it has about the same land area.
On Earth, where there be water, there be life.
And where there be water, there be pirates. Yarrrr!
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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.
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
Are you kidding? With 200,000 troops, a herd of inspectors and millions of pissed off disaffected Iraqi citizens we couldn't find WMD in a country less than the size of Texas.
Those rocket scientist kids are doing okay.
Maybe we should have sent them into the desert.
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It's pretty clear that life requires a solvent of some kind to form the complex molecules needed for life. Try and imagine amino acids forming in ice or some other solid. Water is regarded as the universal solvent since virtually everything will dissolve in it. Add to that that water is pH neutral and it provides a very hospitable environment for these molcules.
Also, water has the unique property of being less dense in solid form than liquid form, hence ice floats. Thus, when bodies of water freeze, the ice settles on top of it. In other words, water freezes from the surface down, unlike other liquids. This action provides an insulating layer which allows life to flourish under the surface instead of being driven to the surface by ice forming from the bottom up.
Water also has strong surface tension due to the hydrogen bonding between water molucules. This allows for capillary action in which plant can pull water up against gravity. This isn't necessary for the formation of primitive life, but it's difficult to imagine higher forms of life without it.
No, all science points to water being the one molecule which is able to nurture and sustain life. It's an amazing compound despite the fact that it's so prevalent that we tend to take it for granted.
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I disagree completely with you and saying that this is not enough for sustainable human development. I'm sure this is enough water to sustain development for years to come, long enough for somebody to find water somewhere else.
Well, it's of order 20 trillion liters (10mi*10mi*200 feet) of ice (which is about the same volume as the equivalent liquid water content - ice is only about 10% less dense).
A random site says that Americans use on average 80-100 gallons per day, which means that water would supply a colony of 10,000 for 11,000 years.
Yes, the water needs for a colony are higher than the water needs for a person, but an off-planet colony probably is going to recycle water (one would hope), so I'd imagine actually that it probably works out pretty well.
So yah, I agree with you. This is a heckuva lot of water.