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Strange Globs Could Signal Water On Mars
Joshua.Niland writes "Strange globs seen on the landing strut of the Phoenix Mars lander could be the first proof that modern Mars hosts liquid water. Images from the robotic craft show what appear to be liquid droplets growing, merging, and dripping on the lander's leg over the course of a Martian month. Just when is NASA going to fix that leaking roof on the backlot?"
That condensed on the metal parts of the rover. Assuming of course that those globs are water and not Martian spit or something else.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
to Mars, sponsored by Perrier or Evian. Now that'll be an expensive drink when its shipped back!
If he's the Walrus then can I be a penguin please?
I thought we already had the signals with the sublimation we caught on camera. Then some more potential evidence with the snow. I think we should be reaching the point where we can start talking about this stuff as possible evidence rather than saying "signal" like we are surprised.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
Does the vehicle itself contain any liquids which could behave in this fashion?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
and submit my pattent for my Moisture Farm invention
http://wpcontent.answers.com/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/83/Luke-Treadwell_close_large.jpg/180px-Luke-Treadwell_close_large.jpg
We sent a robot to look for water on Mars. It lands in an icy puddle, and gets covered in mud and tiny droplets (that behave just like water). But we can't tell if it's water or not. Your tax dollars at work!
Oh the precious tax dollars!
You do realize that scientists have a higher burden of proof, right? They aren't going to say it's water until they analyze it and can confirm with certainty what it is.
Damn right it's my tax dollars at work, and millions of us approve of it.
would the perchlorate they suspect in there keep it liquid at the (what I believe to be is) low atmospheric pressure on Mars? Seriously don't know :)
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
It could easily be some other liquid guys, for example, CO2 is common in the atmosphere there, and it does condense at the poles to ice, why not condense to water on the rovers?
http://CryoLANparty.com/ A lan I'm staff on!
You'd think any lander we send up there looking for water would have the ability to analyze any liquid droplets growing, merging, and dripping on the lander's leg over the course of a Martian month.
Another example of why the "why send humans, robots can do everything just as well" idea is bogus. If that was an astronaut up there this would be resolved in a minute, not a month.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
That's why scientists aren't calling it water.
I already see a few anti-science posts here, and it's astounding that these knuckle draggers don't understand that there is more than one substance this could be, and scientists won't say what it is until they can prove what it is.
If there is ice there is water http://wever.wordpress.com/2008/07/18/its-official-water-ice-on-mars/
But the droplets now seen are cooler... err, they're warmer (pun originally not intended)
It's awesome that we keep finding evidence of water on Mars, but how are astronauts going to live there long term? Expanded space crafts? Bubbles? Underground? Or how about an even better long term solution if eventually possible: strengthen the magnetic field for mars so it can hold more of an atmosphere while molding the air to our needs.
i don't think the magnetic field is the problem, mars simlpy doesn't have a great enough mass for it's gravity to hold a thick enough atmosphere?
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Dear ___funding agency____, Is there surface water on Mars? We need to send another mission to Mars. It should cost less than the amount of money GM asked for bailout during this funding period to study this question, and 2 five-year funding periods to really find out. Please send money. JPL/NASA
This would make it much easier to set up a colony if we needed to. It'd be a bit like Dune, but at least it'd probably be possible now (although obv. oxygen and atmospheric pressure are still an issue)
Well then, we just need to increase the gravitational constant of the universe as well.
Saying that "martians created humans" only takes the "why do we exist?" question and changes it to "why do martians exist?".
You didn't really answer anything, the whole "why does life exists" question still remains.
please go back to watching american idol now, grown ups will keep doing the science. *pats on head*
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
It proves that a Martian dog found a leg to pee on.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Dear JPL. While we are thrilled about your discovery, Mars isn't going anywhere. We are trying to save the economy and lesten the impact of this economic down turn so that we can spend even more money on you guys in the future. Spending 10 billion on machinists creates more jobs than spending 10 billion on rocket scientists. Hope you understand.
Funding Agency.
Replace "martians" with "God" and try again.
Of course it does, there is ample gravity for an atmosphere. The magnetic field isn't really the issue for an atmosphere, its the shielding from solar radiation that the magnetic field helps with. Without one, life will have a hard time taking hold, and living on the surface will be problematic.
I don't see that this is that surprising. The Phoenix landing site was low enough to have the surface pressure above the "triple point" of water, so liquid water is just a matter of having it being warm enough (or having enough salts to depress the freezing point enough).
Actually the final year of my space science degree almost entirely revolved around martian geology and impact cratering (you wanna know how many craters per square km there are in amazonis planitia? or the southern highlands? TS, go count em yourself...)
So anyway, bite me.
Dear Funding Agency: JPL has a great track record for "less money for greater success"! In addition, the initial $520M for Mars Lander projects has kept many physcists and engineers happily employed. Instead of giving $$ to further enrich Wall Street bankers, business exec, hedgefund traders, etc., this project will employ the brightest minds in this great country to achieve no other countries can in the next N years(and pile up more bull-s*&t here until the BS meter breaks).
sorry, your comment made it sound like you were a memeber of the american idol/ring tone generation.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Which is not to say driving a buggy around mars is not pretty cool, but it's not really going anywhere.
You registered the wrong domain. You should have registered martianhomeopathy.com. I just checked and it is still available, as well as the .net, .org, and .mobi variants. You see, shipping millions of gallons of water down from Mars would be prohibitively expensive. On the other hand, if you market it as 'Homeopathy', you can actually advertise that you have diluted billions of gallons of earth water with just one itty bitty tiny drop of actual Martian water. This will be seen by many of the homeopathy crowd as giving it more powerful juju than if you had shipped 100% pure Martian water.
While I'm not saying that getting that first drop of Martian water would be cheap or easy, but it certainly would be cheaper and easier than setting up a full scale harvesting and shipping system for pure water.
Wow! They're very smart!
While you may have some info that has not been conveyed to the general public, it seems to me that the question of whether their is life is still not really answered, and the question of whether there ever was life, certainly has not been answered. That being said, as far as I know, you are correct that we now KNOW that there is water on Mars, and only "Dinosaur bones are Satan trying to trick us." crowd would think that sending up humans, monkeys, or whatever would completely eradicate any signs of pre-human life on Mars. And, I would guess that those 'KNOW' that there has never been life there, just like they 'KNOW' that dinosaurs never existed.
So, while I do slightly disagree with a couple of your reasoning points, I have to say that your conclusion is absolutely correct.
More proof that the Martian race came to Earth thousands of years ago, interbred with humanity to create the white race, and has ever since been trying to take over the world. They will be done by 2012 when the Annunaki return.
Alien 1: "Dammit Dammit Dammit!"
Alien 2: "How were we going to take over the world with a white Michael Jackson anyway?"
Alien 1: "Dammit!
Isn't it also the case that the magnetic field helps shield atmospheres from being sandblasted by the solar wind? Isn't one of the current theories about early Martian atmosphere is that it was once thicker, but once the core cooled and the magnetic field dissipated, the atmosphere was thinned by the solar wind?
The fact that liquid water can be stable on the surface of Mars has been known for a while. Direct observation, of course, is nice. The next question is whether there might be significant open bodies of water (brine) in some locations. Some satellite photographs could be interpreted that way.
The existence of perchlorates adds another dimension, though, because they are such an effective anti-freeze and a potential metabolite. The perchlorates might actually be biologically generated on Mars, somewhat similar to the way organisms on Earth have generated large amounts of oxygen and changed the environment on a global scale. On Earth, reduction in CO2 levels was an important factor in making the climate more hospitable, and on Mars, generation of perchlorates may make the water more accessible.
Dear JPL. While we are thrilled about your discovery, Mars isn't going anywhere. We are trying to save the economy and lesten the impact of this economic down turn so that we can spend even more money on you guys in the future. Spending 10 billion on machinists creates more jobs than spending 10 billion on rocket scientists. Hope you understand.
Funding Agency.
Dear _Funding Agency_,
We here at JPL understand your position. Since you feel that the space program has no benefits worth funding, we'll be sending over a large fleet of trucks to collect all your computers and other technology made possible by research connected with said space program.
We understand your need to keep operating however, and in the spirit of mutual understanding you've shown us, we will be sending you Univac for your future computational needs. Please have a very large building with a large electrical power system and a team of vacuum-tube replacement technicians ready.
Best of luck,
JPL
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
The Phoenix lander had an arm; it could have easily touched these globules to see whether they were liquid as well. It didn't because they were discovered after mission end. The same can happen to you on a manned mission. But let's look at the costs...
The Phoenix mission cost $386 million (development, launch, mission). That sounds like a lot until you realize that a single space shuttle launch costs $500 million. A human mission to Mars costs at least $500 billion if everything goes right. That's more than 1000 probes to Mars (and/or other planets)! And if we started mass producing space probes, the costs would go down very quickly.
For the cost of a single attempt at a manned Mars mission, we could send hundreds of probes to every plant and many planetoids and asteroids, drilling, searching for life, etc. Those probes would send back video, use arms, drive around the surface, analyze samples, fly, drill, explore oceans and gas planets. They could be remotely operated or work autonomously, depending on the situation. Powered by RTGs, they could operate for years and be ready and even available for rent. And we can send up these probes quickly and they can yield results quickly.
The idea that anybody would want to waste money on a manned mission to Mars is extremely frustrating. The scientific output from a manned mission would be tiny compared to what we can gain with unmanned probes.
As for the globules, we will know whether there is liquid water on Mars long before humans ever set foot on it, and at a miniscule fraction of the cost. In fact, the only way we an even have a manned mission to Mars is to gather a lot of data about the planet before going there.
no its actualy a new world of goo 2 level 2d boy is working on.
Deja Moo: The feeling you've heard this bullsh*t before.
"Therefore there must have been life on mars, therefore we must have descended from alien bacteria, therefore the Bible must be wrong, therefore there must be no God, therefore religious people shouldn't lecture me about sleeping around."
Strange globs found on Mars? - OH C'MON! No wonder such news turns on so many people.
Sir you disgust me.
Five words describe me on a normal day. two words describe me the rest of the time. can you guess?
If the probe can take self-pictures, wouldn't wavelength-specific pictures be easily taken with a handful of filters, and then the pictures sent back to earth for spectrochemical analysis?
I'm tired of these "signal", "may", and "perhaps". The technology is definitely there to give a definite answer.
If you've got the money, honey -
We'll spend your dime.
Your friends at the JPL
(PayPal donations welcome)
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
What if it's true?
So this is supposedly water, or some other liquid, that's forming on exposed metal on a generally windy planet, and we're seeing photos over a 36 day period. Then why is it that there are quite a few persistent blobs that stay in the same place with basically the same shape over that period, while new ones form? Have any of you ever seen water droplets on your car retain their position and shape over 36 hours, much less 36 days? Isn't Mars generally pretty windy? Shouldn't there be much more rearrangement of blobs between these photos if we were looking at something like rain or condensation? If you showed me a picture series like that and said was a picture of a plant on Earth, I'd look at the spreading blobs and immediately tell you it was showing a spreading infestation of scale bugs (or some mealybug relative perhaps). Not saying this is evidence of life on Mars, but I'm interested to hear an explanation of how exposed liquid droplets on a metal surface outdoors can be persistent for that long, while more and more of them appear as time goes on.
Actually that was one of the things we were looking at (without the electric arcing); there ARE very few low angle impact craters. There are a range of reasons but the largest is that an impact crater looks round even for pretty low impact angles. It has to be like 75 degrees from perpendicular to show any serious deformation (IIRC). On mars you also have an atmosphere to deal with and any body coming in at that kind of angle will just skip off, so only the ones relatively close to perpendicular will get through.
Duh, the Venusians created the Martians.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
You'd think any lander we send up there looking for water would have the ability to analyze any liquid droplets growing, merging, and dripping on the lander's leg over the course of a Martian month.
It is entirely possible that the sampling arm cannot touch the leg of the lander. The arm may have limit switches and/or physical blocks that prevent it. After all, you wouldn't want to get the sampling arm pinned in the landing struts if there is a software glitch. Besides, there may not be a tool on the sampling arm that could collect a sample, or an instrument left on the science pallet that could analyze the liquid. The TEGA only has eight sample ovens, and I'm guessing these have all been used at this point.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Just FYI, NASA _is_ the funding agency.
Below is a marginal summary of the process. My colleagues will no doubt correct me where needed. For the record, IAAPS (I am a planetary scientist). It's a terrible system, but it's better than any of the alternatives.
Congress gives NASA some amount of money each year (~0.6% of the total budget). The bulk of this goes to the shuttle and space station programs, but a significant fraction is leftover for science and mission operations. This is portioned out to the various programs (Outer Planets Research, Planetary Geology and Geophysics, Mars Fundamental Research, etc.).
Scientists at their various institutions (including JPL) write grant proposals to one of the NASA programs to fund their research and spacecraft missions. Yes, JPL is a NASA center. Yes, this means that NASA employees still have to write to NASA asking for funding.
Each program convenes a panel of scientists (who have not submitted proposals to that program that year) to evaluate the proposals. In order to avoid conflicts of interest, panel members recuse themselves from discussion of any proposals by members of his/her institution. The NASA program manager selects which proposals to fund based on the panel's evaluations.
We must by now be 100% confident there is H20 there now, and 99.98% certain that there is no, and never has been, life.
I thought those were more like 99% and 0%, respectively.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Saying that "martians created humans" only takes the "why do we exist?" question and changes it to "why do martians exist?".
You didn't really answer anything, the whole "why does life exists" question still remains.
You answered the question, "Why do humans exist on Earth?" And under the hypothesized circumstances, you wouldn't answer fundamental questions by studying life derived from other life. Instead study the Martian life if you want to drill down to fundamental questions.
Because we made Him, obviously.
It's not water.
It's oil.
Translucent, Martian oil.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.