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NASA Finds Evidence of Recent Flowing Water on Mars
SonicSpike writes to mention that Scientists are claiming that they have evidence of water flowing on Mars within the last five years. From the article: "Subsurface aquifers or melting ground ice were floated as possible sources of the water. One of the springs even appears at a fault line, according to Malin, just as they often do on Earth. The shortness of the gulleys, which seem to flow for but a few hundred yards, might be accounted for by a process similar to a volcano's eruption on Earth, with water instead of magma building up underground, and ice, instead of fire, characterizing the resulting flow."
they are going to be looking at a lot of before / after pictures now. I'm looking forward to as well. Very interesting.
There is simply too much glass..
Keep your pants on:
"Nothing in the images, no matter how cool they are, proves that the flows were wet, or that they were anything more exciting than avalanches of sand and dust," Allan Treiman, a geologist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston said in an e-mail.
nuff said.
Get your ass to Mars
Um, that wasn't water. I had had a lot of juice earlier, and there wasn't a gas station or anything to be found... sorry about that.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
so was mars warm and cooled, or was it cool and warmed up and froze again? or did earth beam it with lasers until the ice melted?
Not just scientists, but Scientists with a capital S!
This looks like the real deal. It appears that it's being reported everywhere; CNN, etc. When I saw the original article I was slightly skeptical, but NASA ain't screwing around, it appears.
+++ATH0
Finally, conclusive proof of the existence of SPACE DINOSAURS living under the Martian surface in a network of vast subterranian caves, probably plotting to invade Earth any day now. Why else would there be water on Mars? Think about it.
It would be cool if NASA could keep a few micro-probes in reserve in Mars orbit that could be de-orbited as needed to investigate these kinds of phenomenon as they are discovered. Nothing large and complicated like a rover, just a very hi-resolution camera and some very basic devices to measure the local environment. The real trick would be getting pinpoint accuracy on the landing. To save weight and increase simplicity they need not even be designed to survive landing, just to deliver a high speed data squirt to an orbiter as they collect the most relevant and valuable data on their way down by parachute. If they do survive the landing they only need enough power to last long enough to send a few more surface condition measurements -- again the emphasis on cheap and expendable.
At the other end of the scale we need to develop landers that can investigate hard to get to locations like the very bottom of Valles Marineris. I assume this is where what little atmosphere there is would be the most dense, warm, and possibly moist. This would also be the most sheltered location on Mars from all forms of ionizing radiation.
Letter To Iran
In related news, Starbucks announced it is booking passage on the next flight to the Red Planet. "This enables us to continue our mission of providing coffee to the races of the solar system," said its CEO. "I look forward to asking our first Martian customer, 'Would you like a double mocha latte, Mr. Xzart'FooKniznak?'
Dinosaurs = Fossils = Fossil Fuels = INVASIO^H^H^HLIBERATION!
Richard Hoagland (sp?) was talking about this last night on coast 2 coast... the radio show normally infested with funny alien abductees and anal probe recipients.
He apparently had seen this stuff in mars rover pictures and predicted it.... guess nasa has finally came to the same conclusion.
I bet they were just more thorough or cautious in their analysis before declaring anything.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
McMurdo Panorama
For water to flow, it has to have gotten to the source of the flow first. So, there has to be a mechanism for transport back to the source of the flow. Like rain moves water on Earth back to higher ground. The article offers no speculation on this transport mechanism. I would, of course, suspect evaporation and then dew/frost. But, that would be picked up easily from our probes and even from Earth-based observation.
What am I missing here?
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
Move over, Dasani, Poland Spring, and Evian... Here comes Lunar Liquid!
There's been pictures indicating recent water flowing for years. Guess the evidence got overwhelming. There's been also strong evidence of seasonal darkening as if the ground was damp during summer months. I found a camera shot years ago that showed the ground next to the rover that seemed to show a patch of water maybe the size of your palm. The ground around that was dark. NASA definately suffers from dogma. The current dogma had been for a dry Mars. Just glad they are surrendering finally and accepting the evidence. Given the resistence to change I think it'll take samples brought back from Mars to prove life. There was evidence as far back as Viking but still no missions looking for direct signs of life. I'd love to see that resolved during my lifetime but I have my doubts. It may have to wait for the manned mission and even then there'll be debate for years if something is found if NASA brought it there themselves.
Not all scientists are convinced that it was actually water.
"Many scientists believe the gullies were carved by liquid water, although others have argued they are due to avalanches of carbon dioxide gas or rivers of dust," from The New Scientist.
Also, here is the NASA release from their site.
There are many tongues to talk, and but few heads to think. -Victor Hugo
If you look at the high res images (from NASA here)
You can see the flow emerges from the side of an impact crater.
The water was most likely locked underground (as expected by the briney moist soil effect the rovers noticed just under the surface)
Its like diggign a hole in the sand at the beach, eventually water will start to seep in.
liqbase
Yesterday on Technocrat there was an announcement about the upcoming NASA press conference. NASA has kept nerds in suspense for utterly minor announcements before, so I wasn't expecting much from the announcement. Indeed, anything as important as the discovery of life (or, rather, the discovery of fossils of life) would probably have leaked out before and be all over the news.
But this announcement is cool because it means that Kim Stanley Robinson's trilogy beginning with Red Mars , undoubtedly the most inspiring work of space colonization science fiction for many of us here, may still be timely. Much of Robinson's plot depends on the existence of subsurface aquifers. Even if there's no life, we can still dream of such an awesome concept as terraformation made possible through water still present underground.
You, in fact, did spell his name incorrectly. The correct spelling of his name is as follows:
W-h-a-c-k J-o-b
I find it interesting that NASA also mentioned this week that they want to build a forward base on the moon in order to allow for further exploration of the Solar System, specifically Mars. Are they trying to drum up some support for their project ? Or just coincidence ?
of martian global warming too?
and if so did we on earth cause it?
I think I would get hot too getting probed that much.
(not that kind of hot get your mind out of the gutter)
I'd Tell you all my secrets but I lie about my past
Sonic... submitted this story faster than me? *snickers* I think they just blew out my ironic-o-meter!
Demented But Determined.
If they have found water on Mars this could send the price of water down.
No matter where you go, there you are.
What's that white stuff around the crater's rim? Is that just a trick of the light? If it's not could whatever it is be the same material as the 'flow?' It has a similar intensity to the light-colored 'flow.'
"Mars is essentially in the same orbit... Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen that means we can breathe." -- Dan Quayle, 8/11/89
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
I suppose you have to at least give them points for consistency.
0 9020.html. Now, in a separate, parallel window, open up the following image: http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2004/arch/041126 craters-lab.htm
There is plenty of reason to be skeptical of this *interpretation* of the images. For instance, pull up Figure B at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars/images/pia
Can we really say for *sure* that this was an *impact*? Or were the craters formed by electrical discharge between the planet and an object as it fell towards the planet? This would explain the multiple impact craters and this is after all exactly what happened when a large copper ball was shot towards the Tempel 1 comet. I wonder if the "impacts" correspond to high points on the land? Nobody seems to be asking these sorts of questions because electricity is assumed to not be an important part of terraforming for the planets.
We have plenty of evidence already for electrical dust devils on Mars. Why is the electrical explanation consistently ignored when the morphologies appear almost identical?
There are all sorts of mysterious phenomenon on Mars that lose their mystery once you consider that electricity may be active on that planet.
"A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
This is interesting because it's been stated time and time again: Where there's water there's almost surely life.
Here is my home page.
I, for one, welcome our new Martian overlords.
A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere.
has netcraft confirmed this water?
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
I bet they were just more thorough or cautious in their analysis before declaring anything.
NASA is more cautious than anal-probe radio-show guy?
What a bunch of pansies! That's no way to do science.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
You probably can't get closer to the reality. BBC is reporting it too and there they say:
"Other scientists think it possible that gullies like this were caused not by water but by liquid carbon dioxide.
One of the reasons for favouring CO2 was that computer models of the Martian crust indicated water could exist only at depths of several kilometres. Liquid carbon dioxide, on the other hand, could persist much nearer the surface where temperatures can drop as low as -107C."
But for funding it just has to be water, that's science and that's sad.
(I don't blame them, I know game too, different league, same rules.)
"Hannibal's plans never work right. They just work." Amy/A-Team
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/12/06/missing.family/in dex.html
Would you buy water from mars at $10,000 a litre? If the rich and famous spend thousands on a diamond encrusted mobile phone, would they spend that sort of figure on a bottle of space pop?
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
I am the original poster and the summary or even the link is NOTHING like I submitted. I guess the /. editors take 'editorial liberty' to the extreme! No resemblence to the orignal at all.
;-)
Oh well, at least I got credit for it and good karma
Libertas in infinitum
A photo that Nasa published over a year ago already unquestionably demonstrated the existence of water on Mars, see http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050401.html
(And if you're still not convinced you can even try this at home...)
Keep in mind that many of the 'major' discoveries of the MER mission announced at press conferences turned out later to be wrong, and the subsequent peer reviewed literature reflects the fact that the press release science was wrong.
anyone you use 'squirt' to say transfer.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
As I understand it, it's already common slang in some fields for sending data via satellite ("squirt the bird").
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
This sounds like every party, ever.
"Aw man, I can't believe you left our chess club bash last night. FIVE MINUTES after you left, the entire cheerleader squad stumbled in and started making some unconventional moves with the bishops!"
"Dude, you JUST missed it. The keg floated FIVE MINUTES ago, and the stores are all closed now."
"Man, I'm telling you, the water was just here FIVE YEARS ago. What took your ass so long to get here?!?"
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
This has also been picked up by the major media.
On a side note, the HiRISE team is now posting new large images on the HiRISE Website every week on Wednesday. (A file size and format warning is needed. The full super high resolution photo of the Opportunity landing site is 677 MBytes in JP2 format)
Of course, there are some pics that I wouldn't mind a little more investigation on. I happen to be interested in something I call Gulliver's Golf Ball, something that looks like a perfect sphere, roughly 200 meters across.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Nah, that's just a little ice cream.
I'm sorry. The Devil made me do it.
Actually on closer inspection its sewage run-off. Definetly clear evidence of little green men living underground. ;)
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
No kidding!!! If i hear him say "hyper-dimensional" one more time, I'm going to kick HIS ass to Mars.
He's a nut... But on a more serious note, he's just some public has-been seeking to recapture the lime-light he once had in the past. In any case, it's sad to see someone's reputation degraded to that of nut. He has no one to blame but himself.
Life is not for the lazy.
Great, who's couch is Tom Cruise going to ruin this time over this finding? Maybe Scientology was right after all.
Full Tilt
So? "Squirt" in the lewd sense is *still* a rapid data transfer. Works better for the intended purpose, however, when one end is a responder - rather than both ends being initiators.
Lemme grab my "gizmo" and squirt one off.
Ok yeah given the sloven stereotype of geeks, I guess it could be pretty bad.
No sig for you!!
It's so obviously a weap0n of mass destructi0n - time to move in! (Maybe should have got these same NASA analysts to examine the satellite surveillance photos of Iraq - if they took several years to come to this conclusion they're obviously more thorough and methodical) :-)
Looking to the near future, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Mars Reconnaissances Orbiter (MRO) delivers a more clear picture of whats going on up there...
I'm not fat, just big boned...
You could probably ask for volunteers for a one-way mission to Mars and get enough responses from slashdot alone to fill the roster.
Finding volunteers for spaceflight is a non-issue. Finding qualified ones...well, that's probably still a non-issue. It's the nerd equivalent of offering Joe Sixpack tickets to the Super Bowl if he'll just smear hot grits all over Natalie Portman.
Fill in your four or five-letter word of wisdom here _ _ _ _ _.
I'd say they're just being overly cautious. Announcing the discovery of water on Mars is big news. Having to retract that and say, "Oh, nope, it's just...really odd dust." would really suck from a PR perspective. Better to say, "Well, we might have water, but we're not positive." right up until a probe goes and picks some up in a sippy-cup and sends it back home.
Fill in your four or five-letter word of wisdom here _ _ _ _ _.
"Even if you didn't something something"
No, I didn't didn't anything.
If this ain't real, the American definition of "evidence" moves two steps closer to the interpretation used by Vladimir Putin...
White stuff around the rim? I think you've been watching too much gay porn.
Now all we have to do is locate and turn on the alien machine, to melt the glacier, that will make Mars habitable.
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
To find out more about this crackpot, check out Bad Astronomy
Setting his threshold to 5, Sparky eliminated most of the trolls on /.
For what it's worth, I should point out that this is perfectly consistent with the story that's been gradually developing over the years. We know that there are substantial amounts of hydrogen in the first few meters of most of the Martian crust (cf. the MO Gamma-ray spectrometer) and hence there is likely water ice there. We know that in the distance past large quantities of liquid water flowed on the surface to carve the fluvial geomorphological features we see (cf. MGS MOC images). We know that liquid water sloshed in at least some areas to form certain minerals (cf. MER results). We've seen gullies on the sides of craters that looked recent (cf. MGS MOC images). And now this study which shows gullies being created over the timeframe of a few Earth years. Basically, this is just one more little increment in our understanding of the distribution of water on Mars. This is how science usually works but sometimes press releases unduly hype things.
Forget not the special plumbing you'll need to handle the resulting "space wiz."
"Remember folks, when you drink Olympus Ale, the special Martian molecules must be processed by our extra special Deimosian Commode, yours for only $85,000. Also try our Baldet Bidet, made from 75% Baldet Crater clay, pumping fresh streams of Martian Melt for your refreshment."
Actually I thought about your objection and decided it isn't necessarily so. It might be possible to make the delivery of such micro-probes one of the mission objectives of a suitably designed orbiter.
To elaborate the micro-probes would be ideally wedded in data communication to such an orbiter already. Thus why not house them in the orbiter until needed? Orbiters periodically need orbital adjustments, low altitude orbiters need periodic orbital boosts. I don't know how efficient this would be for re-boosting, but the launch of the micro-probes/micro-landers could boost the orbiter -- they could be launched/jettisoned gun-fashion.
For best short term reception the micro-probe could be shot slightly forward of the orbiter (OK I'm simplifying some tricky orbital mechanics here that may actually involve shooting aft) such that the orbiter trailed the probe before the probe entered the atmosphere then the orbiter could pass close overhead as the probe entered the atmosphere, then most crucially maintaining line of sight long enough for the probe to land ala Cassini-Huygens. Orbiters typically involve orbits that maximize terrain covered, so eventually they would come around to a micro-probe launching opportunity, and since they would have very similar orbits (having started from the same orbital point) very little fuel would be needed for the described flyby telemetry receiving scenario.
Being housed interim on the orbiter, the micro-probes need not be engineered to survive the rigors of space on their own, nor independently receive ground control, nor remain powered up continuously.
Letter To Iran
There is absolutely no proof that there's actually water in that glass. It could be liquid carbon dioxide. Enough of this junk science.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
Doh! We ran the rover into a river! Too bad the rover wasn't transformers inspired as it could have morphed into a boat to save itself...maybe next time
when I read "recent" i thought it might be 1000-2000 years old but five years is, like, fresssh.
but it was a washout.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Yes, Virginia, there are canals on mars.
In Soviet Russia, ground flows on water.
Hell is the impossibility of reason...
Which for all intents and purposes means a dedicated orbiter - thus sending "cheap and expendable" right back out the window.
Which means considerable weight and complexity on the orbiter. And "cheap and expendable" goes out the window, *again*.
"Orbiting around Mars in reserve for an indefinite period of time" and "cheap and expendable" are mutually exclusive. Period.
What I really don't understand is why they announced this now. They found this information out many months ago and waiting until now to reveal it. WHen asked they said evidence leads them to "believe" it is water. They aren't positively sure, although they've made a strong case it is in fact water (or atleast a liquid of some sort). They could send the Orbiter (and they are going) to the sites and do analysis of the area to help determine if the substance is water or not. Why did they not do this prior to making this announcement is beyond me. I guess they can make two announcements now. Hopefully the second is that they've verified that it is water.
Well the cheapest thing is never to send any landers/orbiters to Mars ever again, but I'm fairly certain we will be sending more of both. Micro-Probes need not be a budget busting accesory to add if you are already committed to going to Mars, again the Huygens analogy.
Letter To Iran
The difference here is the definition of "recent". There is evidence of tens of thousands of gullys that have evidence of flowing water, for the *geological* definition of recent. In the sense that "It is obvious what happened here, this is what it looks like after water flows across the surface". "Recent" to a geologist means "within the last million years".
6 -145
In this instance, we actually have photographic evidence, with one picture in 2001 and another in 2005 showing an actual change over the course of years, not millenia.
Water is flowing on the surface of Mars *now*. Granted, it is a rare event on a human timescale, with only two instances detected across on third of the planet's surface over a period of 5-6 years. But from a geologists perspective, we've moved from the realm of "recent" activity to "active" activity.
JPL has an awesome site up right now explaining the MGS team findings:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=200
Why is Slashdot rejecting stories about James Kim? One wonders if the editors here would like to get the same treatment from fellow websites in event of a tragedy, especially given the fact that Slashdot has been forum to many stories about individual hardships, like writers who can't afford rent. Apparently, the loss of a father and fellow geek... ehh, doesn't mean much, huh?
a divine jokester, no?
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Is there oil there?
Seems that the many rover pics with the tracks left behind and the clumpy mud sticking to the wheels would have been an earlier clue.
Where have I seen this phenomenon before? Oh yeah, back when I was a kid and goofing around on a BMX bicycle. The Mars surface has same appearance as the clay used on baseball fields after a few hours of rain. Not that it apparently rains on Mars, but the soil properties indicate moisture.
Water on Mars...wow. That's just neat. I've been thinking that before human life occurred on Earth, Mars had human life, then something happened(meteor strike? I dunno), and all life on Mars was exterminated.
:P
Although that's just my uneducated guess. There's probably lots of evidence against my guess.
Well I for one welcome our Martian Ice Claw Bear overloads...
Is this Artesian water? Or perhaps, Martesian water..
Thanks, I'll be here all week!
Who is controlling NASA PR these days, and who decides to put these stories out? A few years ago there was the 'bacteria in meteorites' tale and they've been desperate to imply running water on Mars, with a pile of puff pieces over the last couple of years.
;-) and sometimes they don't even have the same conclusions that the PR pieces have...
Now I have the highest respect for the NASA scientists and I don't doubt their work, but both in the 'bacteria' case and in this one there are far more likely scenarios, which are supported by plenty of good scientists. They publish in the media anyway and in the long run it makes them look foolish, when the guys doing the work certainly are not. I've read a few of the published articles from the Mars research in scientific journals, well 'Science' anyway
Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
I know god killed a puppy last night because I masturbated. Does doing that make the face on Mars cry, too?
Sorry everybody.
Sweet informative mod.
They are waiting for Netcraft to confirm it.
because these look nothing like known dry dust flows on Mars.
l lies/not_dust/index.html
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2006/12/06/gu
Just look at the pictures of dry dust flows, and you'll have to say that these most definitely are not sand gullies.
True, they haven't figured out what causes "light" sand streaks, either. But those light sand streaks don't seem to change be formed within a few years, which makes this remarkable in its own way for being the first known "light" streak formed recently.
I'm skeptical to say that this is the "smoking gun" for liquid water on Mars they'd like to make us think, but it sure looks like evidence of something very *liquid* very *recently*.
yeah - with our weapons of mars destruction
In some fantasy world where 'micro' probes can what you think they can do, yeah. Here in the real world - the probes aren't going to be 'micro' and with minimal impact on the orbiter. The will (most likely) weigh in excess of 100kg, which is over half the total science payload of your average Mars bound probe. That's a budget buster. Even in the unlikely event you can get down to 50kg - it's still heavy, it's still a massive (and expensive) impact on the orbiter carrying it.
I'll repeat this a third time since you cannot seem to grasp it: "Orbiting around Mars in reserve for an indefinite period of time" and "cheap and expendable" are mutually exclusive. Period.
Heineken was first
I don't understand this particular stand which most of the professional/amateur scientists seem to have about the conditions necessary for 'Life' to exist anywhere. Surely we can say that life, as we know it on earth (or the type we have seen so far on earth), needs water to exist but why the generalization ? Why is it necessary that all types of life everywhere in the universe has to be carbon based ? Why should even the lowest level consciousness need water to exist ? We frequently talk about the future when AI will be indistinguishable from human intelligence and still put water as one of the indispensable ingredients when we go looking for life in other planets.
Its a huge flight of fantasy but why can't there theoretically be Sulphur/Silicon based life in say Mars or Venus (or even Mercury) The life we know as it exists on Earth will not be able to survive in those condition but then that is probably the reason we are not living there. If there is actually life in those places then I am sure it is well suited to survive in those "extreme" conditions.
Yeah I know the primary purpose of searching for signs of water is to decide if we can someday colonize that particular planet or its satellites but when someone proclaims something like "No evidence of water therefore no life possible on that Planet", I really wonder about the possible pockets of Life we may be ignoring.
Politicians and Pedophiles: Two groups of exploitive bastards who are most dangerous when they're thinking of children.
You are purposefully taking an overly pessimistic stance. Sheesh, we'd have never landed on the moon if it was left up to thinking like this.
Are you really trying to tell us that it would be impossible to build a probe for under 50kg that could take a few pictures, sample a very limited and simple amount of inputs, and do so cheaply?
I guarantee you it can be done in under 1kg. Quite possibly a lot less than 1 kg. Don't know where you're getting your numbers from...the Rover is 175kg, most of that required for batteries, motors, wheels, suspension...things a vehicle needs to Move and Stay Alive for a long time.
This thing wouldn't need to move, or last more than a few hours at most when turned on.
By the way, indefinite != forever, as you appear to believe.
No Comment.
Yes, the layer below the troposphere, the lithosphere, can sustain pressures adequate for liquifying carbon dioxide at those temperatures.
I like how Art Bell refers to him as "Big Dick" he can't stand him it's Noory that worships that clown.
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/163756main_PIA0 9027_a_full.jpg
This pair tries to prove changes that occur on a given spot in 5 years. Right figure is lighter in general and there are additional clevices that are lighted up in the right figure. Seems to be that it is a combined effect of different position of the sun and different exposure (contrast, brightness).
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Start a high-intensity survey of likely areas NEAR Spirit and Opportunity - when another is discovered, immediately begin driving one of the rovers there. Let's see this stuff up close, take some samples, use the RAT, etc. If there's water, if there's a chance of microbial life, I think either Spirit or Opportunity could find the evidence. These rovers gots wheels, let's use them.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
To quote HyperTextBook: In 2001 the average temperature on Mars was -81 degrees F.
If water is now flowing up there in 2006, the temperarture has drastically changed over the past 5 years. Maybe Al Gore needs to make a movie about "Martian Global Warming."
If you wagered that, I'd take you on.
Keep in mind that Mars is significantly smaller than earth - around 6.4x10^23 kilograms, (easy to remember since it's very close to 1 mol) and as a result the effects of gravity are significantly lessened.
the "still heavy" 50 kg item you're describing could be lifted with a single finger on Mars.
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
No, I'm being realistic.
Yes - I am. Because to start with, space rated components are not cheap. The launch alone is very expensive.
1kg? You haven't the foggiest clue what you are talking about. The battery alone required to power the probe from seperation, through re-entry, and descent will weight at least that much (and probably considerably more) all by itself.
The rover on the surface weighs that much - the rover in cruise phase weighed considerably more.
There is a lot more to a probe hanging on an orbiter than you seem to think. You fail to consider the weight of the heatshield and backshell, the retrorocket package (they can't simply be 'fired' like the OP thought), the parachutes, etc... etc... Huygens had a similiar mission as these microprobes - and weighed nearly 300kg.
'Indefinite' means, in this context and according to the OP's specification, anywhere from months to years in orbit around Mars - not to mention a cruise phase of up to a year.
All I can do is respond by stating, again, that if it was left up to people like you we'd never accomplish anything at all.
No Comment.
Here's a free clue for you: What something weighs on Mars is utterly meaningless. What matters is how much it weighs on Earth because the payload capacities of a probe are based on the launcher and what it can loft on Earth.
Forgot to mention - Earth is about 10 times the mass of Mars. That should make those numbers a bit easier to swallow.
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
In other words - your mind is made up, and you cannot be bothered with facts. It's so much easier to make ad hominem attacks than to even take the trivial effort to look up the weights of Huygens or Beagle 2.
Contrary to your (unfounded) belief, I think probes like this are a good idea. But the difference between the OP, you, and me... Is that I have actually studied the issues and thought about them. But you and the OP merely toss out handwaving nonsense without making the most trivial of efforts to attempt to understand what is involved.
The idea is not something even remotely like Huygens or Beagle 2, but you don't seem to be able to get past that.
It's fine if you want to declare this impossible and have nothing to do with it. But must you shit on someone else's parade in the process?
No Comment.
I understand *completely* what the probe is intended to do. I also, unlike you and the OP, understand the engineering realities involved.
I didn't declare it impossible, I declared it impossible within the weight/cost constraints you and OP have placed on the probe. (Which is a very different thing.) Such a probe is quite possible and fairly easily doable, but it won't be as cheap or light as you and the OP seem to think.
I haven't 'shit on' anyones parade, I have discussed cold hard engineering reality. That you cannot discern the differnce is not my problem.
You have just proven exactly why the XPrize exists, and all the other grass roots space related initiatives going on. Engineers have a notoriously hard time thinking outside of their box sometimes.
You're the one that applied the arbitrary lower limit to the possible weight of this thing...I'll even go with your lower one, which was 1/3rd of the weight of Mars Rover. Mars Rover being 150kg. So you state this is impossible at anything less than 50kg...but this probe needs almost NONE of what adds up to the weight of the rover. Think Simple. Never mind backup this, redundant that, gotta make sure it'll run as long as possible...It requires an extremely small lifespan upon activation. Keep thinking simple, and small. Small enough that multiples make the system redundant in and of itself.
Damned, look at what they fit in a Cell Phone these days...wireless, camera, a million other things not required by this....50kg...come on now.
I'm sorry, but you most certainly are shitting on this idea out of hand. I'm starting to suspect that you're just a troll with absolutely zero knowledge on the subject...At least, I hope so.
No Comment.
Sometimes outside the box is a rich and verdant pasture - sometimes an empty and blasted wasteland. Merely going outside the box is no sure guarantee of sucess.
And need I point the lack of sucess from the alt.space community? Not to mention the rocky ground of economic viability they work very hard to divert attention away from? (Don't get me wrong - I'm a strong supporter of alt.space, but supporting does not include deluding myself to reality. There are many hurdles yet ahead.)
I've said this once before, but you failed to understand it. So I'll repeat myself;
You cannot compare the weight of the rover on the ground with the weight of the probe on the orbiter. This is apples and oranges as the weight of the rover on the ground does not include the weight of the descent systems.
That's why I keep pointing at Beagle 2 and Huygens - because they, not the rovers are the closest thing to this notional probe. Look at the Deep Space 2 probes that were carried with the Mars Polar Lander - they weighed in at 2.4kg, and were *far* less ambitious than the probe under discussion. (And you need to work on your reading comprehension - as I did not state it was impossible, I stated it was unlikely.)
Now look at all the things a probe requires that a cell phone does not. A heatshield, a parachute, retrorockets, a (high precision) guidance and control system, thermal insulation, some form of some from of RCS and descent aerodynamic control, structure to withstand the shock and vibration of launch, a higher power higher and bandwith communications system, a *much* bigger battery, a *much* higher resolution camera... Not to mention a lifespan in an extreme enviroment of from two years to as many as eight years.
I *am* doing just that. But there are hard limits on how small and how light you can make it and still have it perform a useful mission with the parameters specified by the OP. (And it's still going to be expensive to attain a reasonable survival and performance ratio.)
I'm not 'shitting on this idea out of hand', I'm reporting cold hard engineering reality. You cannot seem to discern between the assumption that the probe is possible within your parameters - and actual examination of the probe from an engineering point of view.
For example - the requirement for accurate targeting *alone* (pinpoint according to the OP) increases the weight of the probe by at least 4-20kg (in the form of a reaction control system for the ballistic phase). The need to slow it down enough, or the need to survive landing (the latter is much more doable), long enough to transmit those high resolution pictures *also* adds another 10-20kg. Thus, our (estimated and optimistic) minimum weight is already at 14kg and we haven't even put the instruments on yet
Wow!! What a fascinating story. It is certainly not news I was expecting to hear today, and I am very saddened by it. It does bring up one question, though . . . who the fuck was he? I never heard of him before.