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Phoenix Mars Lander Deploys Robotic Arm, Possibly Finds Ice

Posted by Soulskill on Fri May 30, 2008 06:37 PM
from the armed-and-gregarious dept.
Mars Space NASA
The Phoenix Mars Lander has successfully deployed its robotic arm and tested other instruments including a laser designed to detect dust, clouds, and fog. The arm will be used to dig up samples of the Martian surface, which will be analyzed as a possible habitat for life. A camera on the arm will allow pictures to be taken of the ground directly beneath the lander. The camera has already seen what may be ice, which was exposed when the soil was disturbed by the landing. The data collected by the arm will be compared to recent findings which suggest that water on Mars may have been too salty for most known forms of life.
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Submission: Mars' water too salty to support life by FiReaNGeL (312636)
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  • Could be, could not be... (Score:5, Funny)

    by lazy_nihilist (1220868) on Friday May 30 2008, @06:43PM (#23605913)
    Lets wait for the test data to confirm if it is ice. For all we know it "could" be oil ;-)

  • Extremophiles (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Gothmolly (148874) on Friday May 30 2008, @06:46PM (#23605953)
    Just because its too salty for 'most' life doesn't mean its too salty for ANY life.

    • Re:Extremophiles (Score:5, Informative)

      by spyder913 (448266) on Friday May 30 2008, @06:52PM (#23606017)
      "The scientists say that the handful of terrestrial halophiles -- species that can tolerate high salinity -- descended from ancestors that first evolved in purer waters. Based on what we know about Earth, they say that it's difficult to imagine life arising in acidic, oxidizing brines like those inferred for ancient Mars."

      Looks like it is just very unlikely with what we know.

      • Re:Extremophiles (Score:4, Insightful)

        by symbolset (646467) on Friday May 30 2008, @07:21PM (#23606251) Journal

        Based on what we know about Earth, they say that it's difficult to imagine life arising in acidic, oxidizing brines like those inferred for ancient Mars.

        er, ahem -- [enotes.com]

        Hamlet:

        And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.

        There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

        Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

        Hamlet Act 1, scene 5, 159-167

        Wm. Shakespeare

        Two billion years from now it may be difficult to imagine life evolving on the Earth. If you can still find the Earth, that is. Time has a way of hiding things.

    • Re:Extremophiles (Score:5, Insightful)

      by v1 (525388) on Friday May 30 2008, @07:08PM (#23606157) Homepage Journal
      We keep seeing these same generalizations going on when looking for life elsewhere.

      Lets face it, odds are if we DO find life, it's going to be fundamentally different than what we're expecting it to be. Saying conditions aren't good for life anywhere based on what we consider habitable is silly. The reason our conditions are ideal for our life isn't because we got lucky and got the right combination of environment to grow up in, it's because we adapted to become the best suited for the environment we developed in.

      I'll give them "initial conditions" though. Certain environments certainly lower the odds for genesis. Once you've achieved genesis however, evolution takes over, and so long as you don't have a fast severe change in conditions, life will adapt over time to become well-suited to whatever the environment can throw at it.

      So unless you're looking for life that has just recently come to be, there's almost no point in examining conditions. Probably the only environmental necessity is reasonable temperatures. (and I mean very generous range, at least a ways over abs 0 and too low to melt lead)

      Actually, on the high end, it would not completely surprise me to find life IN a sun. Whenever we look somewhere and say no life can exist there, it's too hot, too cold, too alkaline, too dry, whatever, we end up finding life. Recently we found life IN a rock, eating radioactivity. After that you pretty much have to be an optimist.

      • Re:Extremophiles (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Kjella (173770) on Friday May 30 2008, @07:31PM (#23606331) Homepage
        Well, on the other hand you can argue that if there was a niche here on earth life would have evolved to fit it given the obvious benefits like having no enemies. So if we don't find life here on earth, are chances really that great that we'll find radically different life living under the same conditions on other planets? I suppose that's a difficult question, since it's hard to tell how much evolution is path-dependent or if the same basic creatures would form anyway.

      • Re:Extremophiles (Score:5, Insightful)

        by maxume (22995) on Friday May 30 2008, @07:39PM (#23606385)
        What are you expecting life elsewhere to be? I'm expecting it to be something that takes advantage of energy gradients (food is essentially an energy gradient, it takes less energy to gather fruit than the fruit contains, similarly for prey) in order to maintain its own order at a level above that of the average environment that it exists in.

      • Re:Extremophiles (Score:5, Informative)

        by DerekLyons (302214) <fairwater@NOsPAM.gmail.com> on Friday May 30 2008, @11:38PM (#23607455) Homepage

        Lets face it, odds are if we DO find life, it's going to be fundamentally different than what we're expecting it to be.

        You state that as if it were a fact, rather than the opinion it actually is.
         
         

        Saying conditions aren't good for life anywhere based on what we consider habitable is silly.

        They aren't saying conditions are good for life based on what we consider habitable. They saying conditions are good for life based on the laws of physics and chemistry and reasonable extrapolations from the same.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by MichaelSmith (789609)

        Once you've achieved genesis however, evolution takes over, and so long as you don't have a fast severe change in conditions, life will adapt over time to become well-suited to whatever the environment can throw at it.
        This is why I think martian life would be obvious to us if it existed. The fact that we have to hunt around for it strongly suggests to me that it doesn't exist.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Colonel Korn (1258968)
          The (as of yet without an upper bound) size of the universe makes it very hard to believe there'd be no life in the universe other than on Earth.
    • You are correct. Although it has been pointed out by others that terrestrial lifeforms that handle extreme salinity first evolved in purer waters, this doesn't tell us a whole lot, as water at extreme depths may well be extremely pure, with life migrating towards the surface as it became more tolerent of conditions. Also, knowing it was salty at one point in time does not tell us about salt levels prior to this, or indeed about salt levels anywhere on Mars outside of the points so far examined. All this also assumes a traditional carbon-based lifeform, which although the most likely, is not guaranteed to be the only form of life. Silicon is a strong contender, particularly if you have environments in which carbon-based structures would be less likely to survive.

      In short, we could easily dream up a million and one scenarios in which life could have existed on Mars or could exist there today. Without more information, all we can say with any certainty is that terrestrial life could not have arisen on the surface of Mars within the narrow region of space and time for which we have reliable geological data. We can say nothing about any other form of life, any other location on Mars, or any other point in Martian history.

      (God, I hate agreeing with someone who's got me marked as a foe. It's so... so... Un-Slashdotish, somehow.)

      • (God, I hate agreeing with someone who's got me marked as a foe. It's so... so... Un-Slashdotish, somehow.)

        Perhaps you should have appended "you insensitive clod!" to your post.

    • Re:Extremophiles (Score:5, Informative)

      by AySz88 (1151141) on Friday May 30 2008, @08:06PM (#23606509)
      I took a course with Steve Squyres [wikipedia.org] (the principal investigator for the rover mission) in the fall semester. According to him, you can't look to Earth extremophiles as evidence that life can arise in these conditions. Extremophiles apparently all have adaptations such that, inside their cells, they can do their chemistry in 'normal' (non-acidic, non-salty, ...) conditions. If life were to arise in extreme conditions, they'd probably need totally different chemistry.

      There's certainly a possibility of some exotic form of life arising in extreme (for us) conditions, but we shouldn't be expecting it to be possible, as there's no evidence that it can happen.

  • The Red Planet (Score:5, Funny)

    by StaticEngine (135635) on Friday May 30 2008, @06:48PM (#23605973) Homepage
    Salty. Red. Once covered in liquid.

    It's clear to me that Mars was once a giant Bloody Mary for the gods. It's the only explanation that fits.

    I love science!

  • Apologies to Mr. Bradbury... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Tastecicles (1153671) on Friday May 30 2008, @07:07PM (#23606141)
    ...if they'd landed a couple kilometres to the West, they'd've landed in the middle of the town square...

  • "Most known forms of life"? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gapagos (1264716) on Friday May 30 2008, @07:08PM (#23606153) Homepage
    Why are we constantly relying on Earth standards to predict what life on an other planet requires?
    Ever head of something called evolution? We already found many speicies on Earth that live without any light, or without oxygen, or that lives in extremely dry areas or under extremely high water pressure....
    So I don't see why one life form could not find a way to develop under very high concentration of salt, or without any water at all while we're at it.

    Granted... I'm sure there's a lot of explanations for my nonsense. See, I graduated in Political Science this summer, so as any respectable politician, it's normal for me to say blatent things about science without knowing anything I talk about. ;-)

    • Re:"Most known forms of life"? (Score:5, Funny)

      by alexborges (313924) on Friday May 30 2008, @07:44PM (#23606421)
      Being a PolSci graduate does not make you a politician.

      It makes you, very probably, a pothead, a great guy to converse with.... and a somewhat disturbing character since youre posting on slashdot.

      Now "saying blatant things about science without knowing anything you talk about", THAT makes you a politician.

  • If NASA Wanted Ice . . . (Score:5, Funny)

    by hardburn (141468) <hardburn.wumpus-cave@net> on Friday May 30 2008, @07:09PM (#23606167)

    . . . I could have given them some.

  • Granades! (Score:3, Funny)

    by alexborges (313924) on Friday May 30 2008, @07:40PM (#23606393)
    Why dont they put some granades on those robots so we can beat the shit out of those red-commie-martians?

    Hell, I bet they are ay-rabs as well with all that sand arround and all.

    Perhaps they have WMD's as well!

    And also, if a big hit as the landing "uncovered" ice, well the granades could be of certain scientific use....

  • Might have found ice? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) (613870) on Friday May 30 2008, @07:41PM (#23606401) Journal
    Before the lander even took off, we all knew it might find ice. Now it's landed there's a press release saying it might have found ice. Is there any news content here? Maybe what's different is that previously we knew it might have found something that might be ice, but now it's definitely found something that might be ice. But previously we also knew it might have found something that was definitely ice. Might be definitely, definitely might be? Please, someone wake me when it's definitely definite.
      • > A few days from now, I'll bet you we'll know there'll definitely be ice on Mars.

        Clearly the information from this probe is of no use to you. You know the answer already. But I'm still waiting.

  • Disturbed by the landing? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bchernicoff (788760) on Friday May 30 2008, @08:53PM (#23606739)
    The camera has already seen what may be ice, which was exposed when the soil was disturbed by the landing.

    I have been wondering about this. I'm sure NASA would have taken into consideration that the retro rockets firing as it landed might melt ice and/or destroy signs of life. Right?

    • Re:Disturbed by the landing? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Brett Buck (811747) on Friday May 30 2008, @09:04PM (#23606775)
      Yes. The chances of destroying life that can withstand extremely high radiation levels, a virtual vacuum, and living in frozen C02 is unlikely to be bothered by a little bit of ammonia steam for a few seconds. Additionally the design intentionally spreads the plume over a wide area to lower the local heating, pressure, or contamination effects. Melting ice isn't likely given the small heat input and short duration, but it's not clear that melting a little bit of ice for a few seconds before it refreezes actually hurts anything much.

                    Brett

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by justinlee37 (993373)
        But shouldn't the sample still be collected from a different spot? I don't think we're worried about hurting the Martian ecosystem here or anything, we just want accurate samples.

    • The camera has already seen what may be ice, which was exposed when the soil was disturbed by the landing.

      I have been wondering about this. I'm sure NASA would have taken into consideration that the retro rockets firing as it landed might melt ice and/or destroy signs of life. Right?

      Yes. The retrorockets are designed to produce minimal contamination and/or disturbance. (And they shut off a couple of meters above the ground to further reduce the effects.) The arm is designed to dig down well below the expected penetration level of any contamination or disturbance.

    • Re:How is this news? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 30 2008, @06:45PM (#23605939)

      Don't we already have two rovers on Mars that seem to have MUCH better capabilities than this thing?

      The rovers can't dig as deep, nor could they have survived more than a season at these polar latitudes either. There isn't as much ice (or for that matter, any ice that we've been able to find) at the latitudes where the rovers are operating.

      As for what we already have on Mars, we have rovers that have amazingly gone almost 10km each. That's about 1% of the distance they'd have to cover to get to where this one is. So in terms of "what we have on mars" that "are capable of finding out what the polar ice caps are like", we currently had nothing until Phoenix.

    • Re:Black and White Ice (Score:5, Informative)

      by ip_vjl (410654) on Friday May 30 2008, @07:04PM (#23606111) Homepage
      Because other than the "gee, that's pretty" factor, a color image doesn't have as much significance as a grayscale image that has been taken through specific filters. The probe has multiple filters so they can take images that are sensitive at different wavelengths (depending on what they want to "see").

      If they want a standard color image, they can take three pictures with R, G, B filters and combine them. It's not like anything they're (likely) going to take a picture of is going to move anyway, so taking 3 sequential images won't be a problem.

      Grayscale images are also smaller (bandwidth-wise) so they can transmit faster. No use wasting time transmitting a larger image if your camera is pointed at the wrong thing.

      • Re:Black and White Ice (Score:4, Informative)

        by GodfatherofSoul (174979) on Saturday May 31 2008, @12:47AM (#23607689)
        Which is the attitude that's killing NASA. When you need 10s of billions of dollars from an intellectually disinterested tax base, "gee, that's pretty" can sell your ideas and pay the bills. I'm not saying sell out, but try to make the science more accessible.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by camperdave (969942)
      It's 2008, why don't people know that every freaking digital camera sensor [cambridgeincolour.com] in the solar system is black and white with special filters in front? I mean, digital cameras have been around since the 1970s [about.com], so it's not like the technology is so new that people are still mystified by it, is it?

      • Re:Black and White Ice (Score:5, Informative)

        by shawnce (146129) on Friday May 30 2008, @06:53PM (#23606023) Homepage
        The take multiple images with different filters in front of the lens then create a composite of these images to generate a approx. color image.

        Additionally they use color patterns on the probes body to calibrate the color generation based on the known color of the patterns (American flag, etc. on Phoenix). They need this because of the way that sun light is affected by the martian atmosphere (which can vary based on local conditions).

    • Re:Lets get our priorities straight! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by foniksonik (573572) on Friday May 30 2008, @07:31PM (#23606333) Homepage Journal
      If attitudes like yours were more prevalent during the rest of human history we wouldn't have any of these problems... and we may never have gotten out of our caves... progress needs risk takers even if the risk is only that we are using resources to explore something rather than ensuring the security of what we already have... don't be such a luddite.

    • Re:Lets get our priorities straight! (Score:5, Informative)

      by GreggBz (777373) on Friday May 30 2008, @08:04PM (#23606501) Homepage

      instead of this pointless intellectual drivel.
      ..how stunningly short sited.

      NASA is the catalyst behind much of the research and development in areas that might help solve this problem you are so worried about.

      Fuel Cells [nasa.gov], Solar Technology [alternativ...-news.info], and a better understanding of the Sun [nasa.gov]and it's fission come to mind.

      Planetary geology, atmospheric science, agriculture (thanks for the weather satellites and accurate maps of the Earth guys) gee I could go on.. all these things are directly beneficial to humanity and the quest of sustaining our existence on this planet.

      I just can't fathom how anyone thinks planetary science and exploring space is pointless intellectual drivel. Wow.

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