Ice On Mars
Posted by
Kevin
Scientists believe NASA’s Phoenix Mars lander exposed bits of ice while recently digging a trench in the soil of the Martian arctic, the mission’s principal investigator said Thursday.
Trenches excavated by the lander’s robotic arm have turned up white material mixed in with the reddish dirt.Trenches excavated by the lander’s robotic arm have turned up white material mixed in with the reddish dirt.
Crumbs of bright material initially photographed in the trench later vanished, meaning they must have been frozen water that vaporized after being exposed, Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson, said in a statement.
“These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it’s ice,” Smith said.
“There had been some question whether the bright material was salt. Salt can’t do that.”
Okay, since apparently nobody else is going to say it…
WWHOOOOOOTTT!!
Fire up the domes and autofabberies!
Comment 6/22/2008
The real importance of this is not, of course, that it was ice (it was already known that the polar caps were ice or at least partly ice) but that there is more ice than known - and the more ice, the more a chance of some of it somewhere being melted ice: liquid water.
And that would be (no pun intended) a seriously cool discovery.
Comment 6/22/2008
Ice on Mars equals water. Oh Yeah. Time to get the geodesic domes ready and head to Mars! If we’d started preparations in 1997 we’d already be there according to some experts. However, Congress was not in the mood to approve it back then. These things happen…
Comment 7/5/2008