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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.'"
It would probably lead to a very smelly planet.
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
Let's hope the lander doesn't break down before next year's asparagus season.
Lets see if it works. Send a bunch of seeds that we think will grow there. Of course the lack of water might be a problem. Are there any arctic cactus?
You might be able to grow asparagus in it really well. ... It is very exciting for us.
And I thought I didn't get out much.
Blank until
What we call "Mars" was originally known as "Arrakis". Let's go find us some fossilized sandworms!
Seeing as I always thought asparagus was from Mars, I am not all that surprised.
TFA refers to a 1 cubic meter sample (35 cubic feet). That is one sweet lander...
some spray nozzles to fire out Easy Off for their Easy Bake Oven in case some silica monster tries to hitch a ride back to Earth. Or, maybe instead they have some RoundUp dispensers. Now, if they have that and some DDT or quinine or something else to terminate any hitchers... like asparagus monsters
hehehe....
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
So nothing originally from Earth, then...
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
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.
How else is the Wong family supposed to live there.
Do asparagus need only an alkaline soil to grow up?
"With six Dr. Quinns, we can teraform Mars - and do it RIGHT this time! ...Yeeeah!"
--Dr. Quinn, "Lost in Time" episode
P.S. "Take that, subspace!" --Stormy
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Ok so how many asteroids do we need to crash into Mars to give it some greenhouse gases and an atmosphere similar to Earth's?
Asparagus is exciting for me, too!
That's some interesting stuff, especially the fact that there's nothing they found in the soil that was toxic. Now if only there was more funding towards going anywhere with this information.
Martian pot is what I'm waiting for. I'm sure it would be outta this world.
rewriting history since 2109
They've already found the water. Why didn't they send up some seeds?
I can see the headlines now in all the papers, when this quote goes mainstream;
TOP SCIENTIST CLAIM MARS SOIL SUPPORTS ASPARAGUS LIKE LIFE FORMS!
Just more evidence that Big Asparagus has co-opted our national science agenda.
I don't care if there are green martians with antennas living underground... I WANT OIL. At $135/barrel, I think it's still profitable enough to extract oil from Mars and ship it here. Is there oil, Phoenix Lander? IS THERE???
Where are the little green men in jacuzzis sipping cocktails saying "ah, I've been waiting for you", that's what we all really want. We all know it.
Assuming that at some point some tiny little bacteria-like thingy is actually found on Mars, what guarantee do we have that it originated there, as opposed to coming from Earth as contamination during any of our Mars missions?
And why am I unable to write in short sentences?
Asparagas is great and all... no really. But any possibility of any other veggies that can grow up there??? What makes asparagas different from other vegetables?
Now that the SCOTUS has affirmed the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms is an individual right... watch Obama flipflop on his political position WRT gun control faster than you can blink, that is.... until after the election is over, no matter who wins.
Half of you mods should immediately mod me offtopic, because I am. The other half of you mods should immediately mod me insightful, because I am.
The spice == oil etc.
HTH
Deleted
Has everyone forgotten Mars has no ozone layer? The soil may contain the necessary minerals and other nutrients, but it's baked under UV rays and (last I heard) full of peroxides and other unfriendly chemicals as a result. Starting with plants is putting the cart before the horse; we should be thinking about extremophiles if we're serious about this. And would it be ethical?
~Eien no Inori wo Sasagete~ Searching for my Hatsumi...
So what happens if we start firing off missions to try and seed life? Without much of an atmosphere, would we need a dome of some sort? How would temperature extremes be moderated?
"The 1 cubic meter (35 cubic feet) of soil was taken from about 1 inch below the surface of Mars"
That's a lot of soil... Methinks someone needs to learn their units.
Just be careful that they don't brand you when you get there.
My mom says I'm cool.
Farnsworth: Well, in those days, Mars was just a dreary uninhabitable wasteland. Much like Utah. But unlike Utah, it was eventually made livable.
So I guess this means god may have created life on Mars as well!
They should have put some seeds in the rover and let it deposit them in the soil. By the time we burn up on this planet maybe Mars will be ready for us to invade?
Maybe get 1 of each seed from the Arctic Doomsday Seed Vault?
The same can be said of my backhair.
After all, Mars and cocoa go together like IBM and genetic sequencing.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Been the Best, been looking for! as fittingly guest and never get
Can you imagine? You get the munchies, and all there is to eat is asparagus? Ugh.
Wonder how thoroughly they disinfected the Mars landers before launch. The Earth has a rich soil and subterranean ecosystem so even if Mars has no ozone layer, there are plenty of hospitable places where a microbe could live. And of course, there would not be any natural predators to keep an invasive species in check. Just think, NASA may just have conducted their boldest experiment ever.
Statesman
What every Mars Lander story needs is a justification for this...uh..lunacy.
470 million dollars is a lot of money. And for only one project. There are a lot more projects in the pipeline.
I simply can't understand this weird obsession with Mars. Sure it exists, but...so what?
It's a bright dot in night sky. That's all it is. It's never going to be anything else. No one is ever going to go there and return alive. The United States will be gone before that happens (the USA is already bankrupt and living on other people's money, whether you accept this reality or not). There's nothing there that justifies the incredible expense when there are so many other pressing needs for humanity. And if you don't care about humanity (which most Slashdaughters don't, admit it), there are thousands of other projects that would bring more benefit to the American people than Mars projects.
The people who are doing these Mars projects are scientifically and technologically advanced but are moral cripples. They know that they are contributing nothing with all this expenditure, and as long as the public funds are spent on them, they don't care. There's no difference between them and the 'welfare Cadillac' hustlers. The best defence that they can offer for this absurd project is that if they didn't spend the funds, then the funds would be going to some insane war on the other side of the world.
Now I grew up in the USA in the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo era. We watched space launches in the school auditorium on TV before John Kennedy was shot (before the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, before BigMacs and Cap't Crunch and SweetTarts). I know what it is like to get excited about space. But I used to get excited about the Easter Bunny, too.
The key expression here is "grew up". The space freaks need to do that. Space exploration is really nothing more than a fantasy for children. When you get a few hundred miles from the surface of the earth, there is nothing that justifies the expense of putting humans there. And there is nothing to justify putting robots on Mars.
So they have water or ice, so what? Our world is 3/4 water. So there is dusty akaline 'soil' there? So what? It's not soil. It's sterile pulverized rock. So what? You get excited about this? My friend, you should try taking some LSD, or having sex with a beautiful woman, or skydiving, or skiing down a 3000 meter mountain or anything else that adults do for excitment.
Seriously, guys, your Mars obsession is embarrassing to the people who care about you. You should get beyond it.
How would it not be ethical???? There is nothing wrong with bringing life to other wise died planets. What is so important on mars that we need to protect it from life??? Rocks, Dirt??? I'm all for protecting the enivorment on earth but because we need the enivorment to survive. But if someone askded me should we move a rock to build a highway, I would say yes wouldn't you?
We need to realize that humans are part of the enivorment and have a right to change it.
... MarsHydro.com (Semi tongue in cheek teaser site created in 2000 when NASA first discovered evidence of PRIOR water on Mars in the form of those gullies.)
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
That's it, I'm joining People for the Ethical Treatment of Asparagus! How dare they send cute little innocent asparagii off to Mars! Don't you know plants have feelings too?
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
The ethical concerns have already been addressed. If the martians don't like our plans, they can file a formal complaint. The plans will be properly displayed for a sufficient duration in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet, stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'.
The laws of probability forbid it!
Now I'm going to be really suspicious should the next lander actually find Asparagus ...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
People Eating Terrible Asparagus already beat you to the acronym.That's it, I'm joining People for the Ethical Treatment of Asparagus!
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Well, there are plenty of comets made of ammonia (NH3). Just blast one in the right way, and you could rain down ammonia onto Mars.
It's possible that there are already nitrates in the soil, though. Current nitrogen content in the Martian atmosphere is 2.7%, and that's with a total Martian air pressure of 1% Earth-atm.
I'd say that means there's still enough nitrogen in the Martian air to extract it for making Earth-like atmosphere inside some gigantic closed tent-domes. Just use that new wonder material graphene to make super-strong gas-impermeable tents.
Seriously. They do.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060672/
"I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
The two endeavors are not mutually exclusive. Terraforming and manned exploration could occur in parallel.
To Mars, Again!
WASHINGTON -- NASA has submitted funding proposals for a new Mars mission, scheduled to launch in 2012. The mission will entail a new Mars lander called the Advanced Series Polymorphic Asparagus Research Automated Growing Unit Seedfarm, or ASPARAGUS, and is expected to grow several varieties of asparagus in martian soil.
"[We] might be able to grow asparagus in it really well... It is very exciting for us" says Sam Kounaves, mission planner for the new endevour.
The lander will be expected to gather soil and deposit it into a 'grow-op' like container, where asparagus seeds will be added to the mix. "We just don't know what will happen after that, it will be very exciting to watch the developments unfold over subsequent weeks." he adds.
Included in the lander will be a CD filled with asparagus recipies for future astronauts of the first manned Mars mission, planned for 2050. "The CD will contain dozens of recipies all featuring asparagus as the main ingredient. Things like boiled asparagus, steamed asparagus, steam boiled asparagus, fried asparagus, and even just plain asparagus!" says Angela Schmidt, the mission's asparagus habilitation expert.
The $480 million project is expected to be greenlit later this year.
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
I think the news here is that you would not have to bring native soil to Mars if you wanted to farm. Yea, you would have to farm under a dome but at least you don't have to transport a few tons of topsoil!
All we need now is carbon dioxide, an ozone layer, liquid water, warmer temps, higher atmospheric pressure, and a new atmosphere and we're all set!
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
is NOT that we can go up there and plant asparagus and have dinner in 3-6 months. What this discovery MEANS is that we don't have to haul ten thousand pounds of topsoil to Mars when we put a lab there.
I knew that ice didn't disappear because of so called sublimation .
Mars is probably crawling with all kinds of tiny critters.
Loose lips lose spit.
...is that you have Asparagus that is bleeched and covered in cancer growths. Besides, if we ship up LA, there won't be a lack of ozone for long.
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)
So put up a fricking sun shade! FOr christ sakes, at least this means we wont have to ship SOIL to the fucking planet when we colonize.
However, assuming that there was strong evidence of an acid environment at some point in Mars' history, then the presence of alkaline soil now means the acid has been neutralized, which would indeed create a salty environment, as acid + alkaline = salt + water.
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)
...until someone points out to those same papers that asparagus contains hydrocarbons, the same stuff oil is made from.
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)
NASA Mars Phoenix Lander
I know this comment won't be popular, but so be it.
Another reason to believe the universe was designed. What are the chances of our planetary neighbor being able to support plant life?
It is Humanity's duty, our perogative, and vastly profitable to bring Life to dead worlds. We can not remain in the cradle forever.
1- Buy rocket
2- deliver Life to Mars
3- Harvest potent Mars-weed and custom bio-cuticals
4- deliver to Earth and the Great Hordes of Slashdot
5 Profit!!!
no question marks.
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
Looking at the pedogenesis processes, we're be cultivating new pedo-extremophiles. Would this be ethical? I think not.
I'm still not sure why they haven't thought of this before... But extremophiles are part of the archaea domain and are thought to be some of the first types of life. Why in the world are they not looking in the volcanic areas of Mars? It doesn't have tectonic plates but it sure has volcanoes (one of, if not the, largest volcanoes in the solar system). Granted nothing can live (that we know of) in molten rock, but nearby maybe under the Martian soil there may be liquid water. It may have enough pressure from the soil above it and heat from the molten rock to reach the triple point. If that is the case I would propose the best starting point for finding thermophilic lifeforms. Not out on the surface where liquid water is essentially impossible.
If you've been following the discoveries about Mars over the last dozen years or so, you've probably noticed that each new revelation followed a trend of making the existence of past or present life on the planet more possible. This latest discovery certainly maintains the pattern. I think it's at the point where if evidence of life is dicovered, it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. Given how tenacious life is, and given how hospitable we now know Mars to be, I think it is likely that some form of life has evolved a way to survive on the present-day planet. Keep in mind that Mars is not always so cold. Tempatures can get well above freezing during the summer in some places. Condidtions just aren't as harsh as some of the places we find life on earth - like inside nuclear reactor cores.
So we spend hundreds of millions of dollars specifically to send a spacecraft across the void to look for signs of life and water. Did anybody actually think to put a few seeds onboard to just toss out and see if they might grow? I mean, we can do molecular spectroscopy from 10 million miles away an nobody thought to thow some seeds in there?
Frank W. Miller
Can someone comment upon how water seems to go from ice, sublimating directly to a gas on Mars, and the implications for potential life? Due to the low atmospheric pressure on Mars, H2O goes from ice to gas directly, just as carbon dioxide goes from solid (dry ice) to gas by direct sublimation on Earth, without any liquid phase...
While some hardy variations of life could possibly life within ice, or somehow benefit from water vapour, it seems that most life on earth thrived and differentiated in the liquid phase of water, which seems to be (currently, at least) non-existent on mars. (And most stories I have read about extremophiles surviving within ice cores and so on, seem to indicate they're kind of in limbo while frozen, not reproducing and thriving...)
Anyone?
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
I think you owe Doug Adams (rip) for that!
cheers, ben
Never miss a good chance to shut up -- Will Rogers
As I've seen others mention, the temp and radiation are big factors, however the biggest for plant life that I heard about was the lack of nitrogen in the soil, here on earth most of the soil has nitrogen derived from the atmosphere. Without it almost no plants will grow, and given that there isn't much if any nitrogen in the mars atmosphere, there's really no way to grow much of anything.
How could it possibly be UNethical?
Introducing life to a dead world affects nothing in a negative way.
So how long until we start to harvest the Martian soil for use on Earth?
ah, bollocks.
a) Proving negatives is hard.
b) Ambiguity on whether there is life on Mars or not justifies many, many more $500 million trips to the red planet.
c) "Its a barren rock, but it could be a barren rock with a few kilograms of lichen on it if you give us a few years" does not justify a series of $500 million missions.
(I'm perpetually amused that folks whine how we can't replace an old-growth forest or rainforest but terraforming a planet, hey, no problem there. All you need to do is sprinkle a little spores and fairy dust and boom you have Earth II, except without all the people mucking it up...)
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
and then the other.
For the record, Rob Ferl was quoted in an old CNN article recently cited in a previous Slashdot comment
"I have no doubt what we can get plants to survive on Mars. When we do, we will have shown that Earth-evolved life is capable of thriving in distant worlds, and we will have set the stage for human colonization," Ferl said.
Looks like he was right on point, except it might just be TOO easy to grow plants there. This data should help decide how to further modify plants for the 'next' mission opportunity!
Calm down, they were just talking about the soil quality, because that is the test that they just ran. All he's saying is that the soil has the necessary qualities to grow plants.
As for the ethics, I think it would be crazy to contaminate the planet with anything if there might be any native martian life - who knows how useful and informative such organisms could be. However if we find the right conditions for life, but no existing life, then I don't see anything wrong with colonizing.
By most ethical systems, it would be- if there's no life already there. If we're doing no harm (destroying martian species), and there's a benefit to humanity, there's few that would argue on solid ethical grounds. Some would try anyhow, on the basis that we humans screw up everything we alter. I don't really consider that as unethical, just motivation to do things right.
I for one welcome our new Giant Martian Asparagus Over... ...feh, I'm getting tired of that...
When the Moon is right behind our House,
And we just wanna go to Mars,
Then peas will grow on the planets,
And lunch will be made from the stars.
This is the dawning of
The Age of Asparagus,
Age of Asparagus
my tomatos would grow there, cause they sure don't like to grow in my garden
a lifetime supply of asparagus and 40 acres of baron craggy wasteland upon which to grow....more asparagus. just make sure to plant around the -70 frost.
Good people go to bed earlier.
"How could human beings possibly handle eating asparagus grown thousands of miles away from earth?... the utensils would need to be engineered to withstand it too."
Mars is nearly tectonically dead, haven frozen solid some time ago. Earth's interior is still convecting and differentiating. Earth may have several billion years of outgassing left in it until it solidifies too. Most of the new gas ("juvenile" in geologic terminology) comes through the 60,000 km of undersea volcanic rifts. Its a direct opening to the mantle. (Most the volcanoes we see on land are with subduction zones. Those aren't juvenile, but recycle elements in the descending crust - the most import CO2 in limestone.)
We obviously have water. CO2 can be reprocessed into O2.
And when you take out the O2, you end up with C, which certainly isn't unwanted waste matter. There is probably a big future for graphene, diamondoid, and carbon nanotubes on Mars. Since locally produced oxygen will be a necessity, there will be a lot of carbon available from the process.
At the current rate of progress, pretty soon there won't be anything we can't make with carbon and carbon composites, from nanocircuits to human habitats. That could be important, not just on Mars but also here on Earth.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
My understanding is that the principal cause of atmosphere-loss on Mars is not its lower gravity (it was able to retain its atmosphere early in its life) but its lack of a good magnetic field.
Mar's gravity has remained constant over the eons, but it has lost most of its magnetic field... which stems from its smaller size (Mars lost its internal heat and now its iron core is not liquid, thus no more magnetic field). Earth being bigger was able to retain its internal heat and still has a liquid iron core = still got a nice magnetic field.
It is thought that having a decent magnetic field blocks solar wind, which strips away atmospheric molecules.
It takes about four years to produce a crop of asparagus from seed. During the first three years, the spears are very small and feathery. Not to mention a pH of 8 or 9 is a bit high, even for asparagus.
but it's baked under UV rays and (last I heard) full of peroxides and other unfriendly chemicals...
Man, does *that* remind me of an old girlfriend! I should have known she was from Mars.
Not to diss goats, but I can actually say that my mother's property (only 1.5 acres) had sheep on it specifically so we didn't need to mow all of it. Worked quite well overall, provided you can deal with sheep - which are *remarkably* stupid, I mean stupid with some real force and intention behind it.
That said, let me be the first to welcome our new Goatish Overlords
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
I for one welcome our new asparagus overlords.
When they confirm life on Mars (bacteria most likely), it'll immediately be placed on the endangered species list since it'll be so rare in our solar system.
Then the Martian environment will be classified as a "pristine wilderness" that cannot be farmed, developed, colonized or terra-formed in any way due to the "danger" such activity would pose to the peaceful and beautiful microbes of the Martian planet.
Oh well, not the first time science was hi-jacked and ground to a halt by the ignorant "belief" of someone with more political motivation than knowledge - but it could very well be the last.
"No power in the 'verse can stop me"
but it's baked under UV rays and (last I heard) full of peroxides and other unfriendly chemicals.
Boy, does that remind me of an ex-girlfriend! I should have figured she was from Mars. In retrospect, it all makes perfect sense.
Does it also contain the electrolytes that plants crave?
The Phoenix Lander earlier this week conducted its first wet chemical analysis through its Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer or MECA, which mixes the soil sample with water and bakes the mud to 1,832 degrees Fahrenheit to test for chemical composition. The results show the martian soil had a pH between 8 and 9, meaning it is alkaline -- the kind of soil you could grow vegetables in if you brought it back to Earth, quickly tossed in some cow manure, and watered. MECA detected the presence of magnesium, sodium, potassium and chloride but no carbon, the crucial ingredient necessary for life on Earth (alright, silicon might also work). Interestingly, JPL tells us that the mineral content of the soil is not much different from the upper dry valleys in Antarctica. What Phoenixâ(TM) wet chemical analysis shows is that there is no life in the soil sample tested by MECA. The Phoenix Lander's follow-the-water strategy for searching for organic compounds is, however, exactly the right strategy for NASA to pursue. Here's a hint, if NASA could land the Phoenix Lander on Enceladus or Titan or anywhere else in this sun system, the test results would likewise show that there is no life in this sun system other than on Earth. It takes more than liquid water for life to emerge. But I believe that our Milky Way galaxy is teeming with life. As Mulder used to say, "the truth is out there."