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Underground Water on Mars?
WaltonNews wrote in with a story about possible underground water on Mars. The article begins: "The Mars Express spacecraft, from the European Space Agency (ESA), has indicated to scientists that the dry atmosphere and surface on the planet Mars does not necessarily mean Mars is dry underneath the surface. In fact, a huge storehouse of water and carbon dioxide could be found in underground reservoirs."
No water after all?
Maybe there are canals on Mars, lol...
Mars Express scientists think Mars might have plenty of water underground.
I'm sure they'll fix the article soon. But tossing the quoted section into a news.google search provides this.
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
This was discovered some time ago.
Got a link to the article? Or do I have to go to Mars and see it for myself? I'll pack thermal underwear and a shovel.
you can press to release it all. There *may* be some bad guys that will want to stop you though.
Let us all call it a dupe! :-)
This is not news worthy in the least. It has been several years since groundwater seeps have been observed by the MOC camera on Mars Global Surveyor.
an ill wind that blows no good
Beneath the surface of the desert planet we will find huge stores of water and the spice melange, which will allow us to see into the future, which will enable us to travel among the stars. It's actually the poop of some giant monster worms creatures, but who cares, let's eat it anyway.
Light cup, beer drink, thin so chain, neck turtle fat, man I won't say it again
Why does this make news? It's speculation. Can I make the /. frontpage by saying "There might be miniture Giraffes under the surface of mars"?
It'd be a fascinating article if they had found water under the surface, but this?...Come on...
ilovegeorgebush
Don't know where the link was supposed to go, but some (not really new) information can be found here, along with a nice section of Mars North Polar Cap obtained with the remarkable Italian MARSIS instrument. Nice to see another world studied by geologists with just the same techniques used here on Earth.
Nuffsaid
________
Don't know about his cat, but Schroedinger is definitely dead.
"Software is like sex; it's better when it's free." -Linus Torvalds
Seriously...there's been a decent number of sightings of ice water on Mars including European Space Agency and again recently with NASA.
There's nothing new here. Stating a theory that perhaps less water has disappeared than previously thought? What's expected? Ice is known to have a lower planetary dispersion rate.
To add to all of this, it's scientifically reasonable to assume there should be fairly large quantities of water under the surface. Logic applies, we've seen landforms that support the belief of water having once been on mars, and we've got recent pictures to show some (likely a lot) is still there. Guess what, anybody who knows anything about dessert geography also knows that water naturally burrows below the surface. This is just putting 2+2 together.
What are they going to report on next, the discovery of Magnetic Fields and how they might exist on other planets?
- Nobody would know what RTFA meant if it didn't need to be said all the time
" In fact, a huge storehouse of water and carbon dioxide could be found in underground reservoirs."
water + CO2 = carbonic acid, or soda water.
Mars is a big soda!
considering its red color, I'm guessing either Dr Pepper, or Cheerwine
I'll take a one-way mission, too. Hell, imagine never having to wear bug spray anymore. No more poison ivy. No more dimwits trying to push their religion on you by force if necessary. And you'd be spending your life building a new world. That would be a wonderful place to die.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
We did. It was called Beagle 2.
It was supposed to dig down a little bit and try to take some underground samples.
Keep in mind that most mining equipment is not very portable, if at all. Taking it to Mars and landing it safely is beyond our current capabilities.
OTOH, we could smash a block of something and analyze the resulting plume. There is no better way to dig a crater that smashing a 1 ton bullet traveling at a couple kilometers per second.
There is, but try smuggling a nuke to space these days...
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
This is quite different from evidence from radar. We're talking about water that may have flowed in the last couple of years. (Not geological time. A few years here means less than ten.)
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
For the damned Mars Mineral water brand to hit Earth shelves...
Nothing witty
See, I said it was unpopular. Bye-bye karma, I barely knew ye ;)
Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
Don't try to second guess the mods. It's as likely to provoke as to mollify. If you're actually fearful of being modded, just post AC.
You have to understand how much it would cost, and that there would be no economic benefits at all apart from the teflon/tang/spacepen type spin-offs; and if that's the aim,
Of course that's not the aim. The Moon will be more than enough of a technical challenge. The reason to go to Mars is pure science; to explore, and in the (very) long term; to colonise. Any economic payoff, unless we discover abandoned Martian flying saucers, is likely to be centuries away, no one is pretending otherwise. (Well, maybe Zubrin is.)
Regardless, I've actually thought along the same lines about colonization, and it has a lot to do with the economic rationale for going in the first place. Once there is one good reason to establish a population, everyone else follows to support that population. Columbus thought that we'd settle to get gold and silver, at Jamestown it was tobacco (eventually), in New England and Atlantic Canada it had a lot to do with just leaving Olde England and perhaps a very little to do with cod fisheries and fur trading. But once those settlements started, other economic activites were established to support the local population.
Once it becomes cheap enough to visit Mars with regularity, be it for simple science or tourism, it would actually make sense to establish a permanent base, rather than bringing everything along each time.
Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
Thank god that it is not likely to win. Simply put, it is no where near as expensive as NASA or even you believe. Why? Because of NASA's and RKA (USSR/Russian space agency ) precursor work of figuring out what works.
- Launch will be provided by any number of transports. My belief is that spaceX and scaled composites will capture the bulk of this within another 4 years.
- Bigelow's stations will be used for transport (100 million or so) nearly 100% based on NASA's work.
- And then a modified BA-330 will be sent to the martian surface by 2015 to see how long it will last. (and yes, the BA-330 will be out by 2010 because of DOD's needs (they are going to use them to hide where antenna are pointing as well as provide a short sleeve work env for repair)). If need be, then craft will be put in a metal container to keep off the environment. (hopfully, one of the next surface missions will send some small samples of material to see how they really survive).
- Armadillo's craft will be used for hopping around and doing mining on the surface.
- Modified forms of Lunar suits will be used for the martianaughts.
No, your fears are trivial to get past.The one hard part on all this is, power. We have 2 choices; Nuke or power sat. If NASA has a decent low-weight, high-power generator, then we will send that. But it is probably good for only 30 years and will probably not be easy to move. Of course, we could send a power sat and then beam the power down. But how much power?
In fact, baring war or worsening debt crisis (sadly, this is highly likely), I believe that we will be on the lunar surface by 2015 and mars by 2020.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
-matthew
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
1973: There MAY be water on Mars.
1977: There MIGHT be water on Mars.
1997: There is POSSIBLY water on Mars.
2004: There is PERHAPS water on Mars.
2007: There COULD be water on Mars.
I am beginning to see a trend here, but I can't quite put my finger on it.
Table-ized A.I.