Chunks of ice seen in Mars lander pictures

[Martin]

http://fawkes3.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?gID=1349&cID=35

 

some words about it are here

http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/05_31_pr.php

 

==quote from press release==

 

Camera On Arm Looks Beneath NASA Mars Lander

 

May 31, 2008 -- TUCSON, Ariz.-- A view of the ground underneath NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander adds to evidence that descent thrusters dispersed overlying soil and exposed a harder substrate that may be ice.

 

The image received Friday night from the spacecraft's Robotic Arm Camera shows patches of smooth and level surfaces beneath the thrusters.

 

"This suggests we have an ice table under a thin layer of loose soil," said the lead scientist for the Robotic Arm Camera, Horst Uwe Keller of Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany.

 

"We were expecting to find ice within two to six inches of the surface," said Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson, principal investigator for Phoenix. "The thrusters have excavated two to six inches and, sure enough, we see something that looks like ice. It's not impossible that it's something else, but our leading interpretation is ice."

 

Click Here for images shown during this press conference

==endquote==

[antimatter]

They've been finding ice in quite a lot places lately...Europa, Mars...

[insane_alien]

uhh we've known europa to be icy for ages. hardly recent

[antimatter]

Oh my bad, good catch.

It's odd though, didn't they find ice on a moon a few months ago? Perhaps it was one of Saturn's moons.

 

Googled it, I think this is what I was talking about...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_7300000/newsid_7308700/7308760.stm

[Martin]

Another place likely to have ice, Ceres.

 

It is likely to have a thick surface layer of ice. It is in the asteroid belt but it is round like the moon or a little planet. So it is not your typical asteroid. I think its mass is around 1 percent that of the moon----one source says 1.3 percent of moon mass

 

The surmised thick surface ice makes it a bit like a Jupiter moon, I think. But closer to us because it is between Mars orbit and Jupiter orbit.

 

A spacecraft has been sent to photograph Vesta and Ceres, but I forget when it is supposed to arrive at Ceres.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(dwarf_planet)

 

==quote Wikipedia==

To date, no space probe has visited Ceres. However, NASA launched the Dawn Mission on 27 September 2007, which will explore the asteroid 4 Vesta in 2011 before arriving at Ceres in 2015.[18]

 

The mission profile calls for the Dawn Spacecraft to enter orbit around Ceres at an altitude of 5,900 km. After five months of study, the spacecraft will reduce the orbital distance to 1,300 km, then down to 700 km after another five months.[52] The spacecraft instrumentation includes a framing camera, a visual and infrared spectrometer, and a gamma-ray and neutron detector. These will be used to examine the dwarf planet's shape and element abundance.[18]

 

Radio signals from spacecraft in orbit around Mars and on its surface have been used to estimate the mass of Ceres from the perturbations induced by it onto the motion of Mars.[36]

==endquote==

knowing the mass allows to estimate the density. surprisingly light---only 2 times density of water I think. supports idea that much of the body is made of ice, not rock

Edited June 1, 2008 by Martin

[BumFluff]

I've read that the water the was formerly on Mars had too much salinity to create life. Giving the amount of Salt in the water how low would the temperature have to fall in order for it to freeze? I know that salty water on Earth needs to fall far below the temperature of what normal unsalinated water would freeze at.

[antimatter]

How did they figure that out? It's rather interesting

[DavyJonesLoquet]

I liked Mars, a bit cold though and the air was full of ash! LOL

Mars can be summed up as a highly vocanic planet that still is volcanic in nature since ice is the product of heat generation since all heat has an inverse population in space since space is -451 degrees and heat recycles the oxygen into water through parastyralysis endothermic reactors. Zen masters have always said there is a balance of nature in the heat and cold of the natural progression of life. They must have a Gauss-Endoscopic Machine too!

[Kyrisch]

If I were vegetarian that would be a hearty supplement to my supper.

[mooeypoo]

I liked Mars, a bit cold though and the air was full of ash! LOL

Mars can be summed up as a highly vocanic planet that still is volcanic in nature since ice is the product of heat generation since all heat has an inverse population in space since space is -451 degrees and heat recycles the oxygen into water through parastyralysis endothermic reactors. Zen masters have always said there is a balance of nature in the heat and cold of the natural progression of life. They must have a Gauss-Endoscopic Machine too!

The fact you can type an answer does not necessarily means you should.

 

In other words: Stop hijacking threads, and stick to the speculation forums.

 

~moo

[Sayonara]

If you are going to hijack, at least state facts. Mars has been tectonically dead for a loooong time.

[Joegocal]

correct me if im wrong but weve also know mars to be icy under the surface for quite some time as well case and point http://www.obspm.fr/actual/nouvelle/nov04/mars04-f1.png

that was taken in 2001 and show mars to have water presumably in a solid state.

[Ophiolite]

If you are going to hijack, at least state facts. Mars has been tectonically dead for a loooong time.

Strictly speaking we should distinguish between volcanism and tectonism. Actually, we should just distinguish between - no strictly is necessary - since the two are quite different. It is true that on the Earth most volcanism is related to active plate tectonics, but such is not, and was not, the case on Mars. In contrast much of the tectonic activity on Mars has been related to volcanism, rather than the other way around.

 

As you say the planet has probably been tectonically dead in terms of large scale tectonism for a very long time. The same may not be true of its volcanism. The perception of a planet that became volcanically dead a billion years or more ago has been challenged. For example, Dohm et al cite the following evidence for recent volcanic activity: (1) stratigraphically young rock materials such as pristine lava flows with few, if any, superposed impact craters; (2) tectonic features that cut stratigraphically young materials; (3) features with possible aqueous origin such as structurally controlled channels that dissect stratigraphically young materials and anastomosing-patterned slope streaks on hillslopes; (4) spatially varying elemental abundances for such elements as hydrogen (H) and chlorine (Cl) recorded in rock materials up to 0.33 m depth; and (5) regions of elevated atmospheric methane.

Source: Recent geological and hydrological activity on Mars: The Tharsis/Elysium corridor; Planetary and Space Science, Volume 56, 2008 Issue 7, p. 985-1013

[Sayonara]

While your post is informative and quite rightly picks up on my incorrect use of terminology, I am not sure such precision is necessary when we are faced with such gems as "Mars can be summed up as a highly vocanic planet that still is volcanic in nature since ice is the product of heat generation".

[D H]

Just to bolster Ophiolite's post, here are a couple of recent articles at SPACE.com:

 

Volcanism on Mars has proceeded in spurts and stops:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080317-volcanic-mars.html

From this technique, the team estimated five volcanic periods: 3.5 billion years ago, 1.5 billion years ago, between 400 million and 800 million years ago, 200 million years ago and 100 million years ago. The dates of the earlier episodes, Neukum estimates, are correct to within 100 million to 200 million years and the later dates are correct to within 20 million to 30 million years.

 

Martian volcanoes may not be extinct: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/071017-mars-magma.html

Although scientists have never observed a volcanic Mars, recent images from the European Space Agency's Mars Express missions suggest the volcanoes there have been active within the past two million years and might still be. Also, the sparse impact craters near the three Tharsis volcanoes indicate relatively recent eruptions.

 

While DavyJones was certainly spouting like a crackpot, what he spouted had more than a grain of truth to it. Mars volcanism and hydrology are closely intertwined and Mars is not quite volcanically dead. There is a lesson to be learned here about psychoceramics, I guess: They aren't always all wrong.

[Sayonara]

Granted, but I personally think that the difference between "highly" and "possibly slightly" is a big one.

[BumFluff]

How did they figure that out? It's rather interesting

It shows itself in the rock. Here is a link:

 

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080529141404.htm

[h4tt3n]

Scientsts now clam to be 100% sure they found water on Mars, after the discovery of small white blocks of matter that automatically disappear a days time after beeing dug free by the Phoenix probe. They claim it must be water since it evaporates.

 

But couldn't it just be dry ice (frozen CO2)?

[calbiterol]

Not if it truly evaporates - I think dry ice would sublimate under those conditions. However, the visible difference between sublimation and evaporation could be difficult to detect.

 

I think Phoenix has equipment to test for exactly this kind of thing, doesn't it?

 

...

I've always wanted to go to Mars...

[Mr Skeptic]

Scientsts now clam to be 100% sure they found water on Mars, after the discovery of small white blocks of matter that automatically disappear a days time after beeing dug free by the Phoenix probe. They claim it must be water since it evaporates.

 

But couldn't it just be dry ice (frozen CO2)?

 

They said it was too hot for that, like finding water ice at 160 degrees. CO2 would have been gone before they had a chance to take a picture. I suppose it could have been some other chemical though.