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Probable Water Ice Sighted On Mars

Posted by timothy on from the pronounced-wooder-ice-in-philly dept.

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."

21 of 393 comments (clear)

  1. The real question is... by Zosden · · Score: 5, Funny

    Is there oil?

    1. Re:The real question is... by GeffDE · · Score: 5, Informative

      H2O ice does sublimate. Here's an easy way to prove it. All you need is a freezer and an ice cube tray.

      1. Fill ice cube tray with water (liquid, H2O water) and put it in freezer.
      2. Go back in a day and mark the level of the ice in the tray.
      3. Return later (preferably at least a week) and marvel at how the ice is below the level marked.
      4. ???
      5. Profit.

      The ice was in the freezer the whole time, so it didn't melt (assuming the freezer was set correctly and continuously powered). Therefore, the solid water lost must have changed to water vapor.

      --
      It has been a nervous year, with people beginning to feel like Christian Scientists with appendicitis.
    2. Re:The real question is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I thought that was from asshole roommates.

    3. Re:The real question is... by morari · · Score: 5, Funny

      Sailors
      Fighting in the dance hall.
      Oh man!
      Look at those cavemen go.
      It's the freakiest show.
      Take a look at the lawman
      Beating up the wrong guy.
      Oh man!
      Wonder if he'll ever know
      He's in the best selling show.
      Is there ice on Mars?

      --
      "He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
    4. Re:The real question is... by Ihlosi · · Score: 5, Informative

      H2O ice does sublimate. Here's an easy way to prove it.

      There is absolutely no need to prove that.

      Just pull up a phase diagram of water (google is your friend), look at the lower-left
      corner (i.e. low pressure and low temperature), and what do you see ?

      A line where the solid phase borders on the vapor phase.

      And what's a phase transition from solid phase to vapor phase called ?

      Bingo. Sublimation.

    5. Re:The real question is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, that's the scientific way. Don't prove it for yourself, take someone else's word for it.

  2. Was there ever doubt? by Gewalt · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Haven't we known for a good many years that there was water ice at the cap?

    --
    Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
    1. Re:Was there ever doubt? by WaltBusterkeys · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, we've even mapped the ice at the poles. But this is still important for a couple of reasons.

      First, it's confirmation that the white stuff at the poles really is ice (and not some unknown martian substance that just looks like ice).

      Second it means that the lander is digging in the right places to find all of the interesting stuff that goes along with water. It's tremendously interesting to discover whether there's carbon-based fragments in the water (suggesting life did or could exist) and to figure out what else is in the water.

    2. Re:Was there ever doubt? by MarkusQ · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Sorry if it sounds like I'm trolling, but I just can't understand our push into space. Maybe it's the engineer in me, but if we can't exploit it (or learn something exploitable from it), why pursue it? It's not that it's not interesting (even fascinating), but not particularly useful as far as I can see.

      You're right, it does sound like you are trolling. But I'll bite.

      First off, you are aware that one of the best ways to improve your national engineering cadre (and thus, your economy, standard of living, etc.) is to attempt things that are at the border of your capabilities, or even just a tad beyond, aren't you? Even if the only thing out there was a big brass ring that was way far away, it would pay to push your limits by constantly trying to grab it faster, or cheaper, or whatever.

      Second, you realize I hope that NASA's budget is minuscule in the big scheme of things; we spend much more on things like professional sports and junk food that are even less useful. Our entire space program from 1958 to today cost less than our current misadventures in the middle east.

      Third, did you ever stop to think about where the vast majority of the available resources are? From energy to precious metals to useful chemical to just plain space the overwhelming majority of the resources we know about are out in space.

      Given all that, it hardly seems sensible to deride the space program as useless.

      --MarkusQ

  3. Rubbish. by jd · · Score: 5, Funny

    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)
  4. Couple more things... by Bandman · · Score: 5, Funny

    Excellent. Some coke and rum and we've got ourselves a party!

    --
    Check out my sysadmin blog!
  5. Yeah, we know. by oskard · · Score: 5, Funny

    This was proven SO long ago.

    --
    Sigs are for Terrorists.
  6. This is why robots aren't great for science by putaro · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:This is why robots aren't great for science by Loadmaster · · Score: 5, Funny

      B: Philip Fry crashes on moon and dies a death Oh! Had they only built the ship with 6000 and 1 hulls this would have been avoided. When will they ever learn?

      I agree though; this robot isn't as good as a human, but the folks at NASA are pretty bright. It's speculation now but after a few more tests they'll have the data they need for a solid conclusion. It's still very early in the lander's mission on Mars. We need to have a little patience.

    2. Re:This is why robots aren't great for science by Zadaz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Manned space flight is afraid of a few deaths? What evidence do you have?

      Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee die during a ground test and we still landed on the moon 2 years later.

      Dick Scobee, Michael Smith, Judith Resnik, Ellison Onizuka, Ronald McNair, Gregory Jarvis and Christa McAuliff died in the Challenger explosion and we were back riding the same design to orbit 2 years later.

      We lost Rick Husband, William McCool, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Michael Anderson, Laurel Clark and Ilan Ramon in the Colombia reentry. And again, 2 years later we're back in space on the same vehicle.

      Just because you're too much of a wimp to risk your life doing something amazing and unique, don't condemn the rest of us to mediocrity.

  7. Re:Dry ice? by MichaelSmith · · Score: 5, Informative

    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? Its too warm for solid CO2. Even at night the temperature is barely cold enough for carbon dioxide to solidify.
    --
    http://michaelsmith.id.au
  8. We Blew It by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 5, Funny

    After all this time and effort, we finally found water on Mars, and we let it get away!

    --

    --
    make install -not war

  9. Re:Great Scott !! by sjf · · Score: 5, Funny

    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 ?

  10. Re:Great Scott !! by flewp · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sure, Martinis may be made with gin, but martiantinis are made with vodka. Duh.

    --
    WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
  11. Re:Oil, Water, Life on Mars? So what?! by Fluffeh · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I still can't say that I agree on your point of view.

    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!
  12. preach that sophist love, brother! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.