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Lots of Pure Water Ice At Mars North Pole

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the so-what-my-freezer-has-tons-of-it dept.

brink2012 writes "Planum Boreum, Mars' north polar cap contains water ice 'of a very high degree of purity,' according to an international study. Using radar data from the SHARAD (SHAllow RADar) instrument on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), French researchers say the data point to 95 percent purity in the polar ice cap. The north polar cap is a dome of layered, icy materials, similar to the large ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica, consisting of layered deposits, with mostly ice and a small amount of dust. Combined, the north and south polar ice caps are believed to hold the equivalent of two to three million cubic kilometers (0.47-0.72 million cu. miles) of ice, making it roughly 100 times more than the total volume of North America's Great Lakes, which is 22,684 cu. kms (5,439 miles). The study was done by researchers at France's National Institute of Sciences of the Universe (Insu), using the Italian built SHARAD radar sounder on the US built MRO. SHARAD looks for liquid or frozen water in the first few hundreds of feet (up to 1 kilometer) of Mars' crust by using subsurface sounding. It can detect liquid water and profile ice. Mars southern polar cap was once thought to be carbon dioxide ice, but ESA's Mars Express confirmed that it is composed of a mixture of water and carbon dioxide. The study on Mars north polar cap appears in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, published by the American Geophysical Union."

39 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. Atrocious Summary by CompMD · · Score: 2, Funny

    This is the worst written summary I have seen in ages. With all the unit conversions, I wonder if this guy is a former engineer for an old NASA Mars probe team...

  2. Re:We had pure water once... by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yea just look what the salt industry did to our oceans, we can't even drink of the ocean anymore.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  3. So Close by Punko · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sufficient Gravity - Check

    Sufficient Sunlight - Check

    Friable surface (soil) - Check

    Sufficient Source of water - check

    Sufficient Atmosphere - ummmmm

    Sufficient Magnetosphere - uh oh

    Cigar - Nope.

    Close, but no cigar.

    --
    If only we could fall into a woman's arms without falling into her hands
    1. Re:So Close by Sobrique · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Close enough I reckon. The biggest inhibitor to colonization of Mars is not the atmosphere or the magnetosphere - those are possible to solve technically, and already have been for previous space expeditions.

      What's really not easy to deal with is water and oxygen supplies - if you have to haul every single kilo of water up the gravity well, you add a massive burden to the operation.

      The fact that we have large quantities of ice to work with, means we have both water, and - by virtue of solar power if necessary, oxygen from electrolysis.

      That's really the major ingredients that are needed to consider a place 'habitable' if not exactly 'comfortable'.

    2. Re:So Close by Rogerborg · · Score: 3, Funny

      I was thinking in terms that solar power is just a question of land area,

      So presumably you're going to blow your first wish on making 400 square kilometres of solar panels magically appear? Why not just wish for a nuclear plant, or better yet, Alyson Hannigan riding a pony?

      --
      If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
    3. Re:So Close by moosesocks · · Score: 3, Insightful

      we have both water, and - by virtue of solar power if necessary, oxygen from electrolysis.

      With water? Forget solar power. We'll do power electrolisis with nuclear fusion.

      How about fission? We already know how to do it.

      --
      -- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
  4. logistics by rarel · · Score: 2, Funny

    We're still looking for the way to get the Bourbon over there though.

  5. Look at that bottled water opportunity! by tjstork · · Score: 4, Funny

    Martian Water!

    4 billion years old, untouched by mankind!

    Unique solar system chemistry boosts your base DNA!

    Live longer!

    Improve your love life!

    Martian Water: Now only $1,000 a liter!

    --
    This is my sig.
    1. Re:Look at that bottled water opportunity! by AviLazar · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Martian Water: Now only $1,000 a liter!

      That would be an incredibly cheap price to pay for a sample from another planet. Considering the costs of storage, and transport yea that would be VERY cheap. The demand would be incredibly high and would not cover the shipping and handling costs.

      --

      I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
    2. Re:Look at that bottled water opportunity! by Futile+Rhetoric · · Score: 5, Funny

      You're right! It sounds almost too good to be true!

    3. Re:Look at that bottled water opportunity! by N3Roaster · · Score: 4, Funny

      The trick, of course, is to dehydrate that water before it leaves Mars. Your liter of water turns into a small packet of dust which your customers simply need to reconstitute before use.

      --
      Remember RFC 873!
    4. Re:Look at that bottled water opportunity! by slasho81 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Martian Water: Now only $1,000 a liter!

      Still cheaper than a liter of printer ink.

    5. Re:Look at that bottled water opportunity! by Prof.Phreak · · Score: 2, Funny

      ...don't forget naturally carbonated!

      --

      "If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy

    6. Re:Look at that bottled water opportunity! by tjstork · · Score: 3, Funny

      The trick, of course, is to dehydrate that water before it leaves Mars. Your liter of water turns into a small packet of dust which your customers simply need to reconstitute before use

      I guess you would call that Marsani?

      --
      This is my sig.
    7. Re:Look at that bottled water opportunity! by computersareevil · · Score: 2, Funny

      I tried drinking that once. I prefer water.

  6. Technical name for it by jc42 · · Score: 4, Funny

    We have a name for a mixture of water and carbon dioxide. It's called "seltzer water". With added impurities, it's sold as "soft drinks".

    Mmmm ... Martian dust cola. Satisfies your body's need for hundreds of trace minerals.

    --
    Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
  7. What is the volume? by fprintf · · Score: 2, Insightful

    [blockquote]Combined, the north and south polar ice caps are believed to hold the equivalent of two to three million cubic kilometers (0.47-0.72 million cu. miles) of ice, making it roughly 100 times more than the total volume of North America's Great Lakes, which is 22,684 cu. kms (5,439 miles). [/blockquote]

    OK, so how many libraries of congress, or Niagra Falls is this? All joking aside, how does this relate to single units of glaciers or land masses, not non-continguous lakes. For example, how many Antarctica's is this? Or how many of our own polar ice caps? Hell, just tell me how many deep Greenland would be covered in ice!

    I know we need things to make volumes, sizes, distances and other units seem real but let's choose something that we all can relate to, that makes sense, eh? Great Lakes just seems really a) North American centric, b) non-sensical to most U.S.ians like myself.

    Sorry for the complaint. I know you do your best with these things. Perhaps it is the lack of Vitamin D and the seasonal affective disorder amongst some of us Northern Hemispherians that make me cranky.

    --
    This post brought to you by your friendly neighborhood MBA.
    1. Re:What is the volume? by MRe_nl · · Score: 5, Informative

      The salty Caspian Sea is the world's largest land-locked body of water. It contains approximately 18,900 cubic miles of water (78,700 cubic kilometers).

      Lake Baikal is the world's largest freshwater lake in terms of volume. It contains about 5521 cubic miles of water (23,000 cubic kilometers), or approximately 20% of Earth's fresh surface water. This is a volume of water approximately equivalent to all five of the North American Great Lakes combined.

      --
      "Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
  8. Oil by eulernet · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Who cares about water ?

    Just discover petroleum on another planet, and there will be a tough competition to get there !

    1. Re:Oil by Rob+the+Bold · · Score: 2, Funny

      Close enough?

      Call me when it rains Martinis.

      --
      I am not a crackpot.
    2. Re:Oil by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Saturn's moon Titan.

  9. When do they start bottling it by rolfwind · · Score: 3, Funny

    and sending it down to hit store shelves?

    If they can have "iceberg" water, I'm sure Mars water will also have an audience:
    http://www.finewaters.com/Bottled_Water/Canada/Berg.asp

    Me? I'm going into the dihydrogen monoxide business.

  10. Re:We had pure water once... by rolfwind · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Fresh water has and is contributing to the continued salinization of our oceans. Originally as water is a solvent and streams/rivers dissolved rock on its way to the ocean and left it there with evaporation, now with all the salt on the roads in the winter plus 6 billion people urinating all over the place.

    I wonder if it ever have a bad effect though, considering that we use the ocean as our toilet and food source at the same time.

  11. Re:Mineral? by Muad'Dave · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There is a widespread urban myth that distilled water is harmful. I've heard it all my life. Look at all the discussion at these sites. Some say there are benefits, some say it'll kill you. Too bad KiwiCanuck didn't "research a little more."

    --
    Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
  12. You have to get to Mahs by Timberwolf0122 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Staht Da Reactah! http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1312

    --
    In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
  13. Earth's oceans are about 96.5 % pure water by RNLockwood · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So the water is 95% "pure" - what's in the 5%? For comparison Earth's oceans are about 96.5% "pure" so the water on Mars certainly would not be drinkable without processing but that's fairly easily done, I think.

    --
    Nate
    1. Re:Earth's oceans are about 96.5 % pure water by mbone · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Remember that salts will not generally freeze out in ice, especially ice that forms by precipitation (as is assumed for the Martian poles). I would assume that the polar caps are very pure ice, with some dust and dissolved CO2. If you melted it, the dust would drop out, and the result might very well be drinkable.

      This is one case, though, where I think "Trust, but Verify" definitely applies.

    2. Re:Earth's oceans are about 96.5 % pure water by ozbird · · Score: 2, Funny

      If you melted it, the dust would drop out, and the result might very well be drinkable.

      You first - I'm not drinking anything containing cryogenically frozen Martian organisms.

  14. Re:We had pure water once... by numbsafari · · Score: 4, Funny

    What's even crazy is the FISH.

    Get this: the fish breathe the water, they poop AND pee in the water, they drink the water and they eat other things that also live in the water.

    I mean, they basically live their entire lives in the water they crap in.

    Yeast are like that, too.

    Anyhow, I'm gonna go grab me a tall, frosty mug of yeast shit infested water.... I mean beer...

  15. kick start by blackfrancis75 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So, we somehow melt (some of) the ice, it evaporates to form oceans and clouds, which kick-starts a water-rich atmospheric cycle. Can someone more knowledgeable than I in these matters please explain whether there's any possibility of this working, or have I just seen too many sci-fi movies?

  16. If you insist... by geobeck · · Score: 2, Funny

    How about comparing apples to apples?

    Okay, the volume is approximately equal to 25,000,000,000,000 apples.

    --
    Find environmentally and socially responsible products on http://buy-right.net
  17. Ocean Equivalent by mbone · · Score: 4, Informative

    Since Mars's Surface Area = 144 million km^2, this implies (for 2.5 million km^3 of ice) that ice caps are enough to supply a water layer 17 meters deep over the entire surface, or maybe 50 meters deep in Hellas and the Northern lowlands, if it was all melted. (If the polar caps entirely melted, that alone would raise the surface pressure above the triple point of water, so liquid water would be possible. The Hellas Basin is deep enough that the pressure is above the triple point now, and it definitely could have liquid water in it if the climate warmed some.)

    Note that the polar caps show very clear signs of layering, presumably caused by the long period obliquity oscillations, and are in general very young geologically, so it is not beyond belief that, say, the Hellas basin fills up with water on a regular basis, every 500,000 years or so.

  18. So we're less atypical than we think? by Kupfernigk · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The last few hundred years of human history have seen people gradually being forced to abandon our exceptionalism. From the belief that the Earth is the centre of the universe to identifying it as a small planet going round an only slightly above average star has taken about 500 years. The belief that human beings, despite having the same biological mechanisms as the other mammals, are essentially different in some magical way is in retreat. Palaeontologists are now assigning more and more anthropoid remains to the genus homo - Neanderthals are now considered merely a different race. But a lot of people are still kicking and screaming to believe that the Earth is somehow magically a uniquely habitable planet. This is perhaps why there was such resistance, first to the idea of water on Mars, then to admitting that there is a lot. The story of recent Mars exploration so far is that it is more like the Earth than expected. This is despite its size and distance from the sun - which raises the possible number of habitable planets out there.

    The last time I posted on this - pointing out that so far 100% of the actual planets we've explored have been inhabited - someone replied repeatedly emphasising the words "on Earth" - whereas my entire point was that this view is "Earth exceptionalism". Other than a few vague words in a book written over 2000 years ago by one small Middle Eastern tribe, we have no written statement on the subject (while most Indians religions support a plurality of worlds.)

    Mars may not be inhabited by life, it may never have been - but we are now seeing a lot more water than previously believed, and evidence of methane generation. The probability must be assessed as non-zero.

    --
    From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
    1. Re:So we're less atypical than we think? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      >> why there was such resistance, first to the idea of water on Mars
      Really? I never heard of anyone resisting the idea of water on Mars. The most common element in the universe is Hydrogen. We're two-thirds of the way to water right from the get-go. Id be more surprised if there was absolutely *no* water on any other planet.

      >> Other than a few vague words in a book written over 2000 years ago by one small Middle Eastern tribe
      Are you referring to the Christian bible? Please point out which passage states that the Earth is the only habitable planet? I must have missed that verse. Or maybe im just not taking it out of context the right way. I understand if you have a beef with Christians, but please try not to make up things to justify it.

      >> while most Indians religions support a plurality of worlds
      Dont forget the Mormons and Scientologists. Hate to leave them out of your deep theological musings.

    2. Re:So we're less atypical than we think? by phosphorylate+this · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The earth IS amazingly exceptional, we just don't know how unique it is.

      Frozen ice on Mars is great, and may make the Herculian job of colonising it or starting outposts later a bit easier. It still looks like its a sterile rock, raising self-sustaining colonies on antarctica and in the seas will be far easier in the short term (100 years).

      In contrast earth is a full ecology with macroscopic life so large it is visible from space. There may be 1 or even 10^6 equivalent biospheres in the galaxy (we don't know) this still means terran planets are unlikely to be common or close together. This is one of the reasons we should be developing science but also conserving the uniqueness that is our biological heritage.

  19. Yes, the Fall into Sin of Environmental Religion by geoffrobinson · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A cow could die upstream and wipe out a village.

    Seriously, people drank beer and wine for a very good reason. It was sanitary and wouldn't kill you like the water would.

    --
    Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
  20. Re:Yes, the Fall into Sin of Environmental Religio by eln · · Score: 4, Funny

    A cow could die upstream and wipe out a village.

    Seriously, people drank beer and wine for a very good reason. It was sanitary and wouldn't kill you like the water would.

    Also, if you drink enough of it, you stop caring about all the cow corpses lying around!

  21. Re:Bunk by KiwiCanuck · · Score: 4, Informative

    I know from experience that de-ionized water will rust stainless steel. I couldn't remember which minerals, but I found them in the WHO report. The minerals are calcium & magnesium. See page 17, http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/nutdemineralized.pdf So people who drink pure water should takes multi-vitamins to compensate. Or drink a couple of glasses of milk a day.

  22. Now, this is the plan. Get your ass to Mars. by More_Cowbell · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I came here for the Total Recall jokes; I can't believe I'm leaving disappointed.
    Oh, /., what has become of you?

    --
    Experience teaches only the teachable. -AH