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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?"
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.
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.
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.
Carbon Dioxide won't condense to water because
1) It's not water; and
2) if you're meaning 'liquid' CO2 doesn't appear in a liquid form at pressures below 5.1 (Earth) atmospheres of pressure. On Mars it will only appear as either gas or 'dry ice.'
Of course, there are plenty of other liquids it could be, and that's why no-one in the know has actually identified it as water.
Cogito, ergo sig.
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!
Because of discoveries on Mars a few years ago, I registered the domain name martiansprings.com.
I get these late night brilliant ideas that go nowhere. I was picturing bottled water sold as a souvenir gimmick in science museum gift shops.
Some say I'm bipolar.
This space available.
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).
Some say I'm bipolar...
...and that there's a portrait of your left foot in the Louvre basement.
The only thing we know is: you're called The Stig.
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.
Would this "dog" be green and have a broom on his head?
That condensed on the metal parts of the rover
Not to denigrate the achievements of the Phoenix lander, but this is exactly why the people who advocate robotic planetary missions over manned ones are wrong.
We didn't detect this water using Phoenix's million-dollar spectrometer designed to detect hydroxy compounds, or whatever. We detected it by adding a $20 digital camera that happened to be capable of pointing at some metal struts.
If you want to discover new stuff, you want to leave room for serendipity. Unfortunately, because Phoenix is a purpose-designed robotic platform, we can't ask any more questions about what the condensing substance is, or what else is in it. No matter how advanced they become, we can only tease ourselves with robots. To really check the place out, we have to go in person.