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Mars Soil Appears To Be Able To Sustain Life
beckerist writes "Scientists working on the Phoenix Mars Lander mission, which has already found ice on the planet, said preliminary analysis by the lander's instruments on a sample of soil scooped up by the spacecraft's robotic arm had shown it to be much more alkaline than expected. Sam Kounaves, the lead investigator for the wet chemistry laboratory on Phoenix, told journalists: 'It is the type of soil you would probably have in your back yard, you know, alkaline. You might be able to grow asparagus in it really well. ... It is very exciting for us.'"
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j1hvRUNc9W-3lupLU6TLQtR0gdRAD91I04D01
Some quotes...
Preliminary results showed the soil had a pH between 8 and 9, researchers said. A pH less than 7 means the solution is acidic, while a pH over 7 means it is salty. Phoenix also detected the presence of magnesium, sodium, potassium and chloride in the mixture.
"It's typical of the soil here on Earth minus the organics," Kounaves said during a teleconference from Tucson, Ariz. ...
The heating experiment, which was designed to look for organics, did not yield conclusive evidence of carbon. Scientists planned to study another soil sample taken from further below the surface.
I found that to be rather large as well, but according to Wikipedia:
The lander has a mass of 350 kg, and measures 2.2 m tall by 5.5 m long with its solar panels deployed. The science deck is about 1.5 m in diameter.The Robotic Arm (RA) is designed to extend 2.35 m from its base on the lander, and have the ability to dig down to 0.5 m below the surface.
And from the Wiki picture and the article picture the bucket looks like it may be about 6 inches wide...However, I still doubt that they actually scooped up 1^3 meter of soil, but rather parts of an area that is 1^3 meter...
Well, the *soil* might be capable of supporting Asparagus, but the seeds might not like the temperature, atmosphere, or ambient radiation.
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
How about potatoes?
Because potatoes require an oxygen-rich soil and also prefer a slightly acidic soil. =)GP may not be polite, but he's right. Lichen are the best adapted plants on Antarctica. And Antarctica is the closest Mars like environment you get on Earth, dry and cold. Some Lichens survive there with a few hours photosynthesis per year.
(*) I know that's bollocks..
Perhaps enough Gravity to hold down said newfound oxygen?http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=1759493
http://www.philforhumanity.com/Terraforming_Mars.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Mars
The problem right now is not the temperature or the sun, we have some forms of life that could handle Mars right now, as far as I know (Asparagus, for example, as well as plenty of microbes). The problem is the plant just isn't heavy enough to keep gas close to it.
OK! I was hoping someone with high speed internet access would do this for me, but I did it. NASA says that much of Mars' atmosphere was lost to pressure from the solar wind, but "[...] solar wind erosion was likely much more effective in the past than it is today." Some believe that Mars' atmosphere was lost mostly due to collisions from a variety of potential impactors. Apparently you can or once could take a class at uoregon which would teach you that there was insufficient temperature for [Martian] water to remain as a liquid, so it froze out leaving CO2 as the primary component in the atmosphere. Which is OK, that's an atmosphere! We want it for warming (CO2 is great) and for providing pressure so that we can survive with an air mask (for which purpose it would be fine.) I mean, an oxygen atmosphere would be dandy, but any atmosphere would be an upgrade. However, it might also have been 7.5 bar of CO2 when Mars was young, which would be a bit excessive for our purposes. Actually, .5 bar would probably do the job, although it would certainly limit the value of suction-based pumps in a non-pressurized environment...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"