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Vast Subsurface Martian Ice Discovered
The Fun Guy writes to tell us New Scientist is reporting that deep-scan radar results from ESA's Mars Express spacecraft have revealed vast amounts of subsurface ice. From the article: "Intriguingly, the signal reflected from the bottom of the crater is so strong and appears so flat that it may be liquid water. 'If you put water there, that's what the signal might look like,' Johnson told New Scientist. But he cautions the data is based on only one pass over the region and could be caused by another material."
also found was John Carter, slightly the worse for wear.
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
To anyone in the know, what implications would this have on the possible terraforming of mars to have a hospitable atmosphere?
"and could be caused by another material"
WTF?! Sending an expedition to Mars, to find water (supposedly with the correct equipment to do so), and then come up with that, erm, statement. As an armchair astronomer, I find that a bit weak.
More detailed analysis of the radar image indicates that the shape of the flat region actually appears to be almost perfectly rectangular, with an aspect ratio of 4:9. Nobody is quite sure what to make of that.
This is a big deal. You don't find raw metal much on Mars; most of it is tied up with oxygen. Raw metal has many implications: if it is common, it can be a great source of base building. If the metals are rare on Earth as well, and they're common on Mars, they could provide a potential export source. If it is a meteor, and they're common, it could affect our models of how often Mars gets struck by meteors. Since the rock isn't buried, it could provide clues as to how long it's been on Mars, how fast Meridiani Planum is eroding, and give us dataon how metals wear over time on Mars.
Any time you find something you've never found before, it's a big deal. Honestly, to people who've been following the mission, it looked like Opportunity was pretty much wrapping things up. It just left a geological treasure trove and there isn't much more "on the map", so to speak. It's neat to see it continue making nice finds.
Check out my website: Playfully Clever
Quaaaaaaaaid... Start the... reeeaaaaccctoooorrr....
Actual Scientist - If you put water there, that's what the signal might look like.
newscientist.com - Radar reveals ice deep below Martian surface
Slashdot.com - Vast Subsurface Martian Ice Discovered
The headlines gets better and better!
The surface of Mars is quite obviously a redistribution of dirt over the surface of oceans made solid by the ill fated use of ice-9 long ago in the Martian past.
RFC2119
To terraform you need to make an atmosphere. You need greenhouse gasses to do this. Water generally doesn't factor into the equation. A good reference is "The case for Mars" by Robert Zubrin (although I don't totally agree with him)
-everphilski-
Everyone knows that to detect water in a deep crater you drop a stone in it and wait for the plopping noise.
Jeez, and these guys call themselves scientists!
Matt. Want XML + Apache + Stylesheets? Get AxKit.
This sounds very interesting!
Click here for an audio interview about the finding.
If I clone myself, can I call it a thread?
If a girl winks to us, can I call it a race condition?
Where's the astronaut with the dousing rods?
All this moaning about the ice caps melting, lets just nip over there and bring some back!
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
Its too thin. That's the problem, trying to make the atmosphere thicker. You basically have to import gasses one way or another. Gasses are bulky though, there are better ways to do it, like plants, biomass, etc. that can break down matter from a solid state into gas. Martian rock is actually rather rusty and carbonaceous (sp?) if you had a good cheap source of heat you could heat it up and get some carbon dioxide and oxygen off of it... its not an easy problem to tackle. Other methods that have been suggested have been bombarding the surface with asteroids from the asteroid belt (many of them have a lot of solid gasses on them) or detonating nuclear bombs (bad idea IMO).
-everphilski-
From ESA:
For the first time in the history of planetary exploration, the MARSIS radar on board ESA's Mars Express has provided direct information about the deep subsurface of Mars.
First data include buried impact craters, probing of layered deposits at the north pole and hints of the presence of deep underground water-ice.
The subsurface of Mars has been so far unexplored territory. Only glimpses of the Martian depths could be deduced through analysis of impact crater and valley walls, and by drawing cross-sections of the crust deduced from geological mapping of the surface.
With measurements taken only for a few weeks during night-time observations last summer, MARSIS - the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding - is already changing our perception of the Red Planet, adding to our knowledge the missing 'third' dimension: the Martian interior.
First results reveal an almost circular structure, about 250 km in diameter, shallowly buried under the surface of the northern lowlands of the Chryse Planitia region in the mid-latitudes on Mars. The scientists have interpreted it as a buried basin of impact origin, possibly containing a thick layer of water-ice-rich material.
To draw this first exciting picture of the subsurface, the MARSIS team studied the echoes of the radio waves emitted by the radar, which passed through the surface and then bounced back in the distinctive way that told the 'story' about the layers penetrated.
These echo structures form a distinctive collection that include parabolic arcs and an additional planar reflecting feature parallel to the ground, 160 km long. The parabolic arcs correspond to ring structures that could be interpreted as the rims of one or more buried impact basins. Other echoes show what may be rim-wall 'slump blocks' or 'peak-ring' features.
The planar reflection is consistent with a flat interface that separates the floor of the basin, situated at a depth of about 1.5 to 2.5 km, from a layer of overlying different material. In their analysis of this reflection, scientists do not exclude the intriguing possibility of a low-density, water-ice-rich material at least partially filling the basin.
"The detection of a large buried impact basin suggests that MARSIS data can be used to unveil a population of hidden impact craters in the northern lowlands and elsewhere on the planet," says Jeffrey Plaut, Co-Principal Investigator on MARSIS. "This may force us to reconsider our chronology of the formation and evolution of the surface."
MARSIS also probed the layered deposits that surround the north pole of Mars, in an area between 10 and 40 East longitude. The interior layers and the base of these deposits are poorly exposed. Prior interpretations could only be based on imaging, topographic measurements and other surface techniques.
Two strong and distinct echoes coming from the area correspond to a surface reflection and subsurface interface between two different materials. By analysis of the two echoes, the scientists were able to draw the likely scenario of a nearly pure, cold water-ice layer thicker than 1 km, overlying a deeper layer of basaltic regolith. This conclusion appears to rule out the hypothesis of a melt zone at the base of the northern layered deposits.
To date, the MARSIS team has not observed any convincing evidence for liquid water in the subsurface, but the search has only just begun. "MARSIS is already demonstrating the capability to detect structures and layers in the subsurface of Mars which are not detectable by other sensors, past or present," says Giovanni Picardi, MARSIS Principal Investigator.
"MARSIS holds exciting promise to address, and possibly solve, a number of open questions of major geological significance," he concluded.
If I clone myself, can I call it a thread?
If a girl winks to us, can I call it a race condition?
"The entire core of Mars is made of ice. The reactor melts it, and it makes air!" - arnie
now, let's see if we find some alien artifacts...
What! Jimmy Hoffa! that's where he's been all these years!
Just take a step back for a second and try to compare the difficulty and complexity of building spacecraft with that of building a telescope. They're not quite on the same level.
End transmission.
NASA did not "find water" years ago... or ever! They found the gamma-ray spectrometry signature for hydrogen and proposed this was likely locked up in ice. Now a different means has been used to measure the subsurface (much more effectively in terms of depth, if less conclusively in terms of composition) and also found results not inconsistent with ice. We will probably not 'find ice' until someone goes there and drills. Until then, different means of measurement are a good idea (even though the media, and worse the bottom-feeding pseudo-journalism of sites like Slashdot, will misinterpret the conclusions that can be drawn).
...It's really just a copy of the Sony rootkit lurking beneath the surface.
NASA did not "find water" years ago... or ever!
Lies! Definitive proof of water on Mars.
I've always disregarded everything that Anonymous Coward guy says. He is always talking crazy.
Arschloch
The problem with radar alone is they will never know for sure. And looking that deep, the water is virtually useless for anything but an advanced permenant settlement. Have you seen the rigs it takes to drill for oil that deep? Not to mention we don't even know if its water or a solidified magma flow.
-everphilski-
At risk of repeating myself - NASA's evidence was compelling, but their conclusion cannot be accepted as proven. ESA's evidence adds something because their RADAR-like approach says more about the depth of whatever is there. (And NASA want to conclude not just water, but a significant amount of it.)
For what it's worth, I am personally reasonably convinced, but I'm also a scientist...
Dang, that sounds so familiar... I'm afraid I know it, but I just don't seem to have complete recall.
"could be deduced"
"have interpreted it as"
"possibly containing"
"could be interpreted as"
"what may be"
"the intriguing possibility"
"prior interpretations"
"scientists were able to draw the likely scenario"
"but the search has only begun"
Ahh yes, science. Where shades of gray run screaming from the cold hard face of objective facts!
While it is from a website full of pseudoscience and unconvincing "fossil" photographs, I found this stereophoto (view with crossed eyes for 3d view) very interesting:
http://xenotechresearch.com/geyop122.htmI can't think of any possible explanation for this kind of geology other than water erosion. If there's liquid water below ground, maybe it's possible for it to reach the surface and remain liquid long enough to produce this feature.
I can never finish a Mars bar without a glass of milk... I hope there's some of that up there!
Only a Sith deals in absolutes.
yes, and my star wars profile likens me unto a sith lord. I also happen to be an engineer... when I'm given data, it's my job to draw the most logical conclusion from said data and use it constructively, not mentally masterbate.
-everphilski-
I have always been under the impression that it is a greenhouse gas, probably one of the most popular ones at that.
I would go find some good sources but will settle for Wiki...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Being skeptical is a good thing but head in the sand dogma is hurting not helping the science.
How, exactly? Suppose, for giggles, that the scientists decided to be less skeptical and run shouting in the streets, "There's water on Mars! And two of three Viking tests showed that there's life on Mars! Yay!" And then...
Then what, exactly? We don't really know anything more than we did this morning; we've just decided to reinterpret the data more optimistically.
Maybe you're just suggesting that the public would be more behind additional scientific research if they thought there was something extraordinary like life on other planets to find there. But that's public relations, not science. Science is about knowledge, not opinion.
It is only by building piece of evidence upon other pieces of evidence that science proceeds. That's dogmatic, perhaps, but it's an extremely successful way of looking at the world. When you start to accept speculation and extrapolation as fact, you gradually introduce more and more errors until you don't really know anything any more.
And I wouldn't call water on Europa an accepted fact, though you wouldn't necessarily know it from reading Slashdot, where the best information on Europa seems to come from the movie 2010. Water on Europa is looked at by astrophysicists in exactly the same way as water on Mars: there is tantalizing evidence but no proof, yet. It won't take muddy boots; it'll just take more probes and more analysis of the existing evidence to rule out other possibilities.
Only when there's no other interpretation of the data can you grant something the status of "fact". And the more you want something to be true, the harder you'd better double-check that it's not just wishful thinking. That's brought down more than one good scientist in the past.
Additional work will continue to be done on the most likely hypotheses. Tantalizing evidence for water on Mars allows us to build machines that will be able to look for it in more detail because we know where, what kind, etc. to look for. Our time and money are limited, so we limit ourselves to the most likely hypotheses. That's why announcements like this are celebrated, but cautiously.
Ok so the total recall jokes are funny, but the starwars jokes arent? I'll never understand slashdot.
The biggest argument against liquid water on mars is this little thing called physics. Water on earth and water on Mars, both being made of H20, behave the same. Since we're aware of the temperature of Mars, liquid water on the surface NOT existing is pretty much a forgone conclusion. The average surface temperature on Mars is MINUS 63 Celcius. Considering that water freezes at 0 degress celcius, I hardly think that it's dogma to insist that the "puddle" you saw was something else besides liquid water.
The other argument against it is another little thing called vapor pressure. Since the atmosphere of Mars is considerable thinner than that of Earth. The atmospheric pressure on Mars is 0.0056 that of Earth's. Given the temperature there, any water would move directly from a solid (ice) to gaseous (steam) state. Liquid simply isn't physically possible.
Since it's really not possbile, the dogmatics are the ones who insist that it exists despite every bit of scientific evidence to the contrary. Unless of course you're proposing the Mars is actually an alternate universe with complete seperate physical laws. Or perhaps you're advocating "Intelligent Design" on Mars????
Seriously, don't take my word for it. Dave Soper has posted a really nice article about it here - http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~soper/Mars/water.html
2 cents,
Queen B
HDGary secures my bank
We sit here, discussing about how to make an alien world suitable for our own needs, as if it belonged to us or something like that. How would we feel if we found out that, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a bunch of hairy little green men, looking at this blue grain of dust traveling around a smallish nondescript star, discussed and moved to "tatooineform" it, ignorant or oblivious to our presence?
I feel very uncomfortable talking about (possibly) someone else's world like this. It seems as if we were talking about taking posession of a seemingly abandoned house.
Stupidity is an equal opportunity striker.
Fellow slashdotter Bill Dog
That still wouldn't explain day variation. It would be the same whether we orbited the sun or it orbitted us since it is caused by the tilt of the earth. Despite what many people think, there actually wasn't overwhelming evidence back then to point towards heliocentrism for a long time and not even Galileo could find any flaws in Brahe's geocentric model. It isn't like now where we have all this evidence supporting something and the religious are up in a knot about it.
Sure, it could be water or it could be ice, if you want to place your faith in either the ESA or NASA.
My bet is on a gigantic buried metallic face (a la the movie "Mission To Mars"). Intelligent design is the correct answer.
We want to bottle that water and sell it here under the exclusive 'God of War' label for 2 bucks a pop.
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Cake or Death? Cake Please!