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Probable Water Ice Sighted On Mars
CraftyJack writes "Bright white chunks in the trenches dug by the Phoenix Lander have disappeared, leading Peter Smith & co. to believe that the chunks were ice that has since sublimated."
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Is there oil?
Haven't we known for a good many years that there was water ice at the cap?
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
The white things were Martian beach loungers. And as they were there first, I strongly suspect they were German-speaking Martians.
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)
Excellent. Some coke and rum and we've got ourselves a party!
Check out my sysadmin blog!
but super scientific ovens do? i suppose the ice melted before they could cook it?
In such a carbon dioxide rich atmosphere, how do we know it is water ice and not frozen CO2? What do we know of the Martian surface and subsurface temperatures?
This was proven SO long ago.
Sigs are for Terrorists.
We often see the scientific community putting manned spaceflight down, saying that it is not useful for scientific research. Had we sent people, with even a minimal laboratory, we'd have known within about 15 minutes whether what they were digging up was ice or not. Since the lander doesn't have an "ice" experiment/module on board, we're reduced to guess work.
The reality is that manned spaceflight is not *economical* for scientific research at this point. We should be working on getting our launch costs down so that we could actually send people to do things, build factories in space, and start getting some real benefit out of space.
Yeah, but how do you shake an entire planet?
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
is send a dozen or two probes to Mars full of bacteria/fungus and whatever other DNA based lifeform that shown ability to live in extreme conditions and populate the planet of Mars. A few of the probes should carry heavy drilling equipment.. bore into crust of mars and dump a few loads of bacteria..
its pretty obvious we'll fuck this planet up sooner rather than later so its probably a good idea to spread the seeds of life somewhere else. Maybe in 100 million years new life forms will thrive on Mars.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1992LPICo.787...18K
Prof: Good news everyone!
Bender: Uh oh. I don't like the sound of that.
Prof: Today you'll be making a delivery to the planet Mars!
Bender: Bo-ring. Let's go get drunk!
Since CO2 sublimates, and water does not. (It shouldn't even melt at these temperatures,) I assume that they mean CO2.
After all this time and effort, we finally found water on Mars, and we let it get away!
--
make install -not war
Mir tut es leid, Menschen daß Einfältigfehlersuchenbaumfolgendenaffen sind.
You see, you had a splendid joke there, and then you went and spoiled it.
Any truly civilized individual knows that a Martini is made with gin, not vodka.
Sheesh, when will these damn colonials ever learn ?
Another article about the same news: http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/06/mars-phoenix-tw.html
There is water ice on Mars within reach of the Mars Phoenix Lander, NASA scientists announced Thursday.
Photographic evidence settles the debate over the nature of the white material seen in photographs sent back by the craft. As seen in lower left of this image, chunks of the ice sublimed (changed directly from solid to gas) over the course of four days, after the lander's digging exposed them.
"It must be ice," said the Phoenix Lander's lead investigator, Peter Smith. "These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it's ice."
The confirmation that water ice exists in the area directly surrounding the lander is big and good news for the Martian mission. NASA's stated goal for the Mars Phoenix was to find exactly this -- water ice -- and then analyze it. With the latest news, the first step is accomplished. All that's left now is to get the water into the Phoenix's instruments, a task which has occasionally proven more difficult than anticipated.
Still, this is the best opportunity that humanity has ever had to analyze extraterrestrial water in any form. That had the Phoenix Lander's persona fired up.
"Are you ready to celebrate? Well, get ready: We have ICE!!!!! Yes, ICE, *WATER ICE* on Mars! w00t!!! Best day ever!!" the Mars Phoenix Lander tweeted at about 5:15 pm.
Their suspicions about water ice beneath the surface of Mars confirmed, scientists and the world will have renewed interest in the outcome of the soil analyses currently being conducted by the lander.
The samples are being examined for traces of organic molecules, among other substances, but the lander does not have instruments that could directly detect life.
See the full announcement from NASA.
You are correct. I had not realized just how low the air pressure was on Mars: it can be around 0.006 atm which is exactly the point where ice will sublimate.
Cool. Thanks !
Why the f*ck was I moderated troll ? I was wrong, but trolling ? Sheesh, get a life.
Still remember when global surveyer first released the picture of massive amounts of water below the surface. It was too good to be true, no-one believed it, and it got put away.
Now we've found massive amounts of water just below the surface, enough water to make huge amounts of rocket fuel, and it didn't even make a buried link on CNN. Where in Calif* can you find water just 2" below the surface?
Sure, Martinis may be made with gin, but martiantinis are made with vodka. Duh.
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
like Jynnan Tonnyx?
Kids! Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous. Do not attempt it in your home!
Awesome, what flavor?
I think the most important thing, and it is something that everyone keeps missing, is that NASA has found a way to turn even rocket scientists into ditch diggers!
Imagine a bright young engineer studying hard on saturday nights, while all his friends are getting drunk and laid, and thinking how he'll have a successful career with NASA. And when thinking about his lucky friends he says to himself "the world needs ditchdiggers too."
And some day he gets into NASA, and his boss's first words are:
"Johnson, this ain't rocket science, Phoenix has landed and I need you do dig me a ditch..."
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
the ultimate aim of these mars exploration missions is to check for signs of life BEFORE we start terraforming the shit out of it. science doesnt want unnessicary genocide on its hands, regardless of the sophistication of the species.
(Okay, okay, I just looked it up: "sublimate" can also be used with ice, but "sublime" is preferred.)
That would turn the whole planet into a Disaster Area!
Not a sentence!
You use vodka out of respect for the fallen Russian probes. When the Dutch lose more probes on Mars to the Russians, we can start switching to gin.
Space exploration has no benefit for society in general. So there is no point in understanding why we have tides? What about how sunspots generate random levels of radiation that plays havoc with the radio broadcasts and communications that we use? What about looking into the area of space around our humble planet to see if there is an asteroid or comet heading right for us? Don't you think that these three points off the top of my head have some sort of benefit for society in general?
As for the swearing, my point is that if it is used as commonly as in your original thread, it really does water down. I got absolutely nothing against colorful language. My point is if you put in too much color, the whole thing becomes a gaudy mess rather than a well accentuated splash here and there.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
This time they really really really really really really found water. Just like the last time they really really really found water. But that one time they found water they really didn't. But this time they really almost definitely did.
The reason you get modded to hell is obvious to this 50yo geek and was politely explained by the GP.
The fact you think space exploration is a waste of time is your opinion, the way you state that opinion is 95% pure troll/flamebait. The unwashed masses of slashdotter do not have a personal grudge against you, you seem incapable of communicating contrary ideas without spewing bile at the same time.
Also your original post is flat out wrong...
"All the bad things about climate change, economic collapse, and overpopulation are happening here and now. The ability to use space exploration technology to address these problems won't be realistic for hundreds of years, if ever."
Space exploration may not fix these problems but how did we find out about them? The effects of AGW and overpopulation have been measured for the last 30-40yrs using space programs such as landsat. As the GP suggested you cannot seperate science into little piles of factoids and then only fund the piles you want to grow, science is both a body of knowledge AND a way of thinking.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Democratyatize is a perfectly cromulent word.
+++ATH0
Large groups of Martians are now protesting at the landing site.
Holding placards saying "Go home - Keep Mars for the Martians" - "You messed up Earth, Leave Mars Alone" - "There's no Oil Here - Go Home"
It appears we may not be welcome after all.
http://davesboat.blogspot.com/
The Viking lander already observed frost:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_2
Furthermore, experiments with simulated soil and athmosphere suggest that that frost actually turns liquid when it melts.
Astronauts will be able to make Long Island Ice Tea on Mars without having to ship expensive ice all the way from earth!
Likewise we know there is ice on mars, and one of the very few ways that a solid lump can disappear without trace is for it to sublimate. Other ways are for something with long limbs to have reached over and picked it up or perhaps they were iron rocks attracted by passing magnetic clouds, or perhaps a tiny blackhole opened for just long enough to remove those pebbles. However we've pretty much proved conclusively that there is no long-limbed life on Mars and every other way is vanishingly improbable so Occam's razor tells us that it is likely enough that this is ice that we can, on website designed for popular consumption, dispense with the endless qualifiers.
When the roads get iced up round my way, they come out and chuck a load of reddish coloured sand on it and it melts, so how can all that ice exist under all that reddish coloured sand on Mars? They really didn't think this through.
That actually may not be a bad idea. Can anyone tell me whether a load of catalyst and a reactor would weigh less than a load of hydrogen?
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Jesus, I thought I signed onto slashdot, but after reading the comments I realize I must have clicked on Fark by mistake.
where you see a problem i see opportunity
send 10 fat guys to mars in a small capsule loaded with beans, rice, corn dogs, garlic knots, etc
when the capsule reaches mars, BOOM, a little percussion decompression, and voila: instant martian atmosphere
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Blue sky on Mars.
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
There is absolutely no need to prove that the Earth is the center of the universe, orbited by the other celestial bodies.
Just pull up a Ptolemaic diagram (google is your friend), look at the center (i.e. within the orbits of the planets), and what do you see?
A circle which is, in fact, the Earth.
And what does the fact that the Sun and all other celestial bodies have concentric orbits around the Earth prove?
Bingo. Geocentrism.
http://www.marshydro.com/ :-)
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
Both are listed in the dictionary.
Well, I don't think it looks fake. But, you could easily point your radio telescope at Mars and verify that there is a signal coming from that direction.
20 years from now, we're going to have junior high school students saying that Phoenix and Spirit/Opportunity were faked. I only say this because my spouse is a science teacher and still hears that the Moon landings were faked.
The more people I meet, the better I like my dog.
We'd better throw out those phase change diagrams in the schools' books and remove the triple point of water, someone on /. has confirmed ...
IT'S ALL A LIE! Water can't sublimate.
Of course, since the triple point of water is 6.1 millibars @ 0.0098 C, and the average atmospheric pressure of Mars is 6 millibars, it can't possibly ever have favorable conditions for the sublimation of ... err ... uh, I mean, ummm ... ... ....
err
Uh
All your vapor belong to US!