If you go back and read it, you'll see that I'm referring to the picture at nasa.gov. The color picture to be precise. There might be naturally occurring water ice on Mars but this ain't it. If we accept the color picture put out by NASA as a realistic rendering of the sample, this particular sample would have the characteristics of a flash frozen liquid spill that occurred after the trench was dug.
The picture they show of this at NASA.gov shows what would be frozen liquid water but we know that it wouldn't have been deposited there as a liquid unless it came from a different planet and was deposited there by a landing craft after the trench was dug. H2O wouldn't desublimate in a form that the sheet ice in that trench takes.
Even if you feel that a water desublimate on Mars could take the appearance of frozen liquid sheet ice on Earth, you'd have to believe that the robotic scoop perfectly dug the trench to clear all the dirt off the thin fragile sheet of ice without breaking it, or if it was thicker before the dig, shaved it down to a perfect millimeter thick sheet of ice.
If the liquid wasn't deposited there intentionally, it was deposited there accidentally by leakage of some sort of liquid from the craft.
Slashdot Mirror
If you go back and read it, you'll see that I'm referring to the picture at nasa.gov. The color picture to be precise. There might be naturally occurring water ice on Mars but this ain't it. If we accept the color picture put out by NASA as a realistic rendering of the sample, this particular sample would have the characteristics of a flash frozen liquid spill that occurred after the trench was dug.
The picture they show of this at NASA.gov shows what would be frozen liquid water but we know that it wouldn't have been deposited there as a liquid unless it came from a different planet and was deposited there by a landing craft after the trench was dug. H2O wouldn't desublimate in a form that the sheet ice in that trench takes. Even if you feel that a water desublimate on Mars could take the appearance of frozen liquid sheet ice on Earth, you'd have to believe that the robotic scoop perfectly dug the trench to clear all the dirt off the thin fragile sheet of ice without breaking it, or if it was thicker before the dig, shaved it down to a perfect millimeter thick sheet of ice. If the liquid wasn't deposited there intentionally, it was deposited there accidentally by leakage of some sort of liquid from the craft.