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Ice on Mars!
Rufus_Shinra
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2045326920080620
I think this is huge news. We suspected there probably was ice on mars, but now we know for sure. This has dramatic implications. The most sensationalist is of course that this increases the odds of life on mars. Life on another planet would be amazing both in its ability to humble us, but also for biologists to get a view of a life form that has a completely different evolutionary history than everything we know of today.
The second is more down the road, but I think the most interesting: The possibility of terraforming Mars for human sustainability. With the confirmation of water, it is now feasible to plan for creating a habitable atmosphere for Mars. With the knowledge of water, we can consider the possibility of terraforming using tools like plants and bacteria (which rely on water) to alter Mars' surface. The addition of plants like lichens would increase the amount of sunlight absorbed by the surface of Mars, as well as produce gases that could be used to trap in heat. Also, any human habitation on Mars would require large amounts of water, and the fact that its already there makes it more feasible to have colonies. Granted this is mostly speculation, but I think it is a possibility at some point in the future and we shouldn't limit our hopes because the technology and willpower doesn't exist yet.
So, anyone else excited? Anyone vehemently opposed to destroying the sanctity of Mars? Anyone merely want to talk about colonizing outside Earth?
Scientists working on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander mission are reporting what they call compelling evidence that the robot craft has found ice while digging on the Martian surface.
NASA is expected to give details on the discovery during a news conference on Friday.
The small science probe landed safely last month on a frozen desert at the Martian north pole to search for water and assess conditions for sustaining life.
Small chunks of bright material described as the size of dice have disappeared from inside a trench where they were photographed by the craft earlier this week, NASA said in a statement late on Thursday.
This has convinced scientists the chunks were ice -- frozen water -- that vaporized after digging exposed it, NASA said.
"It must be ice," said mission principal investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona. "These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days. That is perfect evidence that it's ice. There had been some question whether the bright material was salt. Salt can't do that."
The presence of water on Mars is a hot topic for scientists. They have presented strong evidence in recent years of huge deposits of frozen water at the Martian poles and point to geological features that indicate that large bodies of water have flowed on the planet's surface in the distant past.
Water is a key to the question of whether life, even in the form of mere microbes, has ever existed on Mars. On Earth, water is a necessary ingredient for life.
I think this is huge news. We suspected there probably was ice on mars, but now we know for sure. This has dramatic implications. The most sensationalist is of course that this increases the odds of life on mars. Life on another planet would be amazing both in its ability to humble us, but also for biologists to get a view of a life form that has a completely different evolutionary history than everything we know of today.
The second is more down the road, but I think the most interesting: The possibility of terraforming Mars for human sustainability. With the confirmation of water, it is now feasible to plan for creating a habitable atmosphere for Mars. With the knowledge of water, we can consider the possibility of terraforming using tools like plants and bacteria (which rely on water) to alter Mars' surface. The addition of plants like lichens would increase the amount of sunlight absorbed by the surface of Mars, as well as produce gases that could be used to trap in heat. Also, any human habitation on Mars would require large amounts of water, and the fact that its already there makes it more feasible to have colonies. Granted this is mostly speculation, but I think it is a possibility at some point in the future and we shouldn't limit our hopes because the technology and willpower doesn't exist yet.
So, anyone else excited? Anyone vehemently opposed to destroying the sanctity of Mars? Anyone merely want to talk about colonizing outside Earth?
Rufus_Shinra on
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So, it took a while to disappear and no one thought to sample it. Or it was somehow technically impossible.
Anyway, until real proof appears, I remain unconvinced. It could have been a lot of substances that evaporate at surface temperatures. And the argumentation is flawed to say the least.
Biggest draw I see in it would be that you would have a backup water supply should you start a base there, so if your asteroid harvesting mission gets delayed its not the end of the world. Then again, there isn't a lot of point in going to Mars other than the sight seeing though is there?
World population isn't going down.
It is when you consider the impact development has on birth rates.
Besides, probably takes more resources to feed someone on Mars than it does here. Its Habcomplexs before space colonies
In any case, its good that they have found semi-solid evidence of water.
Especially considering the weather reports I've seen peg the maximum temperature around -30 . . . and water freezes at 0.
Venus?
"As close to actual Hell as possible" - Venus? With all the volcanoes and craters and hyper-greenhouse effect and sulfur dioxide rain and 460 Celcius surface temperature....
This place?
I've never heard anyone suggesting that it could support life. And if it could, I'm not sure if I want to meet anything that has evolved there. :P
I'm sorry but this is driving me nuts for some reason. It sublimated when they exposed it.
They're waiting for John McCain to be POTUS
Course, lacking any real atmosphere or magentosphere, wouldn't all your bases need to be pretty deep underground anyway. Adds to the start up cost, and the running cost but at least you wouldn't need to bother terraforming (or at least until you can start doing silly things like twisting vacuum to put singularities in the middle of it and thus increase the mass enough to hold onto your imported atmosphere)
The surface is pretty uninhabitable, but apparently there are some unusal structures in the upper atmosphere that seem to persist when they shouldn't do whilst also looking spectrographically like they might be photosynthetic. Been a couple of years since I had to look into it so, but in the mean time here is a bit from a really old uni assignment.
Even on Europa we're not talking interesting life, just one thousand and one different types of slime and if you're really luck a worm or two. Its more a good sign because on four of the eight(ish) planets in our solar system there is something living.
Mars is actually just barely in the Green Zone for supporting life in our Solar system. If the planet was a couple times bigger, we would probably see life there today. It would probably be a snowball world, like Hoth, but still.
Early in the Solar system's history, Mars was undoubtedly a habitable planet. Or at least it would have been reasonably warm and had a magnetosphere of some kind (though it's hard to tell how strong, Earth's is very strong because of the way we spin). Water ice is not a rare thing in our solar system, so there would have been plenty present on the surface in one form or another. Because of the planet's size, the mantle and core cooled much more rapidly than earth and lost it's magnetosphere,allowing the solar wind to strip away everything on the surface except dust. This is a theory, of course, but it is grounded in much scientific evidence.
So yea, the best thing to do would be to build underground near the polar caps. This way you could avoid dust and electric storms as well as radiation. Also you could drill underground for water, obviously.
Wouldn't have happened if Kraid had started the reactor.
They've already discounted dry ice(frozen carbon dioxide) because the combination of temperature and atomspheric pressure on Mars does not allow dry ice to form. They also thought it could be salt, but salt cannot sublimate.
The reason they did not sample the ice they found(assuming it is ice) is because 1)they wanted to see if it *would* sublimate, which was a test on it's own, and 2)they were having some trouble getting another soil sample into the special ovens on the rover. the soil has to go through a series of filters, and with the first sample the soil was clumped together too much for it to easily pass through the filters, they had to figure out exactly how to do that, which took a few days to do/test with that first sample.
You guys are right. NASA has no idea what they are doing. You should write them a letter.
Of course they know what they are doing, what with the fake moon landing and UFOs.
*Dons a tinfoil hat*
In all seriousness this is great news, I for one look forward to our disappearing ice overlords.
Well that and a pill that will help my lazy ass lose weight?
Okay, so that's a layman's look.
Clearly it was a good luck charm for finding water.
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[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
Set off nukes to remove Europa from orbit
crash moon into venus
????
earth II!
NASA says "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
Ganymede is awesome
I only learned of Ganymede through the Genesis game Target: Earth.
So it has sentimental value to me.
Isn't the Earth going to be vastly overpopulated in 20-30 years? We need Mars to survive as a species.
I'm sure pumping it up every 200 years would be viable until a more permanent solution was found.
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Maybe if we just took our greenhouse gases over there with a large pipe..
Engineer a super bug and wait a few years for a few billion people to die. Then vaccinate the lucky ones.