Mars Soil Appears To Be Able To Sustain Life 337
beckerist writes "Scientists working on the Phoenix Mars Lander mission, which has already found ice on the planet, said preliminary analysis by the lander's instruments on a sample of soil scooped up by the spacecraft's robotic arm had shown it to be much more alkaline than expected. Sam Kounaves, the lead investigator for the wet chemistry laboratory on Phoenix, told journalists: 'It is the type of soil you would probably have in your back yard, you know, alkaline. You might be able to grow asparagus in it really well. ... It is very exciting for us.'"
Growing Asparagus on Mars... (Score:5, Funny)
It would probably lead to a very smelly planet.
Re:Growing Asparagus on Mars... (Score:5, Funny)
Join the exciting new Mars colony! Wide open spaces! All-you-can-eat asparagus!
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Over here 200 gram of asparagus cost 25 sek or 21 US $ / kg so that would truly be heaven on eart.. mars.
Re:Growing Asparagus on Mars... (Score:4, Funny)
(*) I know that's bollocks..
Re:Growing Asparagus on Mars... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Growing Asparagus on Mars... (Score:5, Funny)
Priorities, priorities!
How about the cocoa plant instead? (Score:4, Funny)
After all, Mars and cocoa go together like IBM and genetic sequencing [slashdot.org].
Re:Growing Asparagus on Mars... (Score:5, Informative)
(*) I know that's bollocks..
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=1759493 [physicsforums.com]
http://www.philforhumanity.com/Terraforming_Mars.html [philforhumanity.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Mars [wikipedia.org]
The problem right now is not the temperature or the sun, we have some forms of life that could handle Mars right now, as far as I know (Asparagus, for example, as well as plenty of microbes). The problem is the plant just isn't heavy enough to keep gas close to it.
Re:Growing Asparagus on Mars... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Growing Asparagus on Mars... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. escape velocity of mars
2. distribution of the velocity of the molecules comprising the proposed atmosphere
There are some relatively simple kinetic models for #2 that do a decent enough job. Long story short, if the bulk of the distribution of #2 is greater than #1, then the gas will escape, as it has more velocity than escape velocity. At what rate? Again, depends **how** far above escape the bulk of the distribution is.
Here on earth, the vast bulk of the distribution(s) of each of the consitutents of air fall under the escape velocity of earth - so we lose very little in the way of our atmosphere to space. But we do lose a little here and there. The lower escape velocity on Mars is what hurts its atmosphere potential.
Re:Growing Asparagus on Mars... (Score:5, Informative)
OK! I was hoping someone with high speed internet access would do this for me, but I did it. NASA says that much of Mars' atmosphere was lost to pressure from the solar wind, but "[...] solar wind erosion was likely much more effective in the past than it is today [nasa.gov]." Some believe that Mars' atmosphere was lost mostly due to collisions from a variety of potential impactors [findarticles.com]. Apparently you can or once could take a class at uoregon which would teach you that there was insufficient temperature for [Martian] water to remain as a liquid [uoregon.edu], so it froze out leaving CO2 as the primary component in the atmosphere. Which is OK, that's an atmosphere! We want it for warming (CO2 is great) and for providing pressure so that we can survive with an air mask (for which purpose it would be fine.) I mean, an oxygen atmosphere would be dandy, but any atmosphere would be an upgrade. However, it might also have been 7.5 bar [pibburns.com] of CO2 when Mars was young, which would be a bit excessive for our purposes. Actually, .5 bar would probably do the job, although it would certainly limit the value of suction-based pumps in a non-pressurized environment...
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That's due to the massive difference in temperature. The colder a gas is, the denser it is. It's no good being able to hold an atmoshpere at >1 atm if that's only the case with temperatures slightly above liquid nitrogen.
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Nutrition wise asparagus kicks ass:
http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/2312/2 [nutritiondata.com]
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Why can't I use to memes at once?
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Re:Growing Asparagus on Mars... (Score:4, Informative)
How about potatoes?
They're a little late in the year for asparagus (Score:4, Funny)
Let's hope the lander doesn't break down before next year's asparagus season.
send seeds (Score:2, Interesting)
Lets see if it works. Send a bunch of seeds that we think will grow there. Of course the lack of water might be a problem. Are there any arctic cactus?
Re:send seeds (Score:4, Funny)
Re:send seeds (Score:5, Interesting)
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It says that lichen still needs water to grow, it can just manage to survive without it for long periods of time. If there is no liquid water available on mars, the lichen would die eventually.
Re:send seeds (Score:5, Funny)
Re:send seeds (Score:4, Insightful)
Knowing the right questions to ask has always been more valuable than a large amount of rote knowledge when it comes to problem solving. Failing to teach this kind of skill is one of the great weaknesses of our modern school system. Rote memory is dropping into an even less important role as the information age progresses, even as public schools face more and more standardized tests as their educational benchmark. All that said, in a social world, grace and courtesy can play almost as much of a role in getting your ideas heard as having the right answer.
FTA: (Score:5, Funny)
You might be able to grow asparagus in it really well. ... It is very exciting for us.
And I thought I didn't get out much.
Re:FTA: (Score:5, Funny)
growing weed should be more interesting, over there it's nobody's jurisdiction :)
not that interesting (Score:5, Funny)
Re:not that interesting (Score:5, Funny)
Re:FTA: (Score:5, Insightful)
They went to great lengths to avoid contamination of the Mars environment with life from Earth. One of their objectives is to see if there's life on Mars, remember?
Re:FTA: (Score:5, Interesting)
they go to great lengths NOT to bring life to mars. Read up on "bio-barrier". If the spacecraft get contaminated during construction or prep they have to re-sterilize it. They want to find life, not spread it.
If you accidentally bring life to Mars, that makes it about impossible to discover it and know for sure it's Martian life and not something you brought, or that mutated from something you brought.
Although I agree that if we determine there is NO life on mars, I say our next probe is sent with a well-planned variety of "colonizer" lifeforms to begin teraforming of the planet so it's at least borderline useful by the time we can send people out there.
Re:FTA: (Score:5, Funny)
That is, unless somebody's done us the favor of leaving a giant insta-terraforming machine lying around there, in which case we just need to send Ahhnold to staht de reactor.
Not mutually exclusive (Score:3, Interesting)
The two endeavors are not mutually exclusive. Terraforming and manned exploration could occur in parallel.
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Well, yeah, of course they could. I was just commenting on the (probably incorrect) idea that we could terraform Mars in the next few decades.
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Ah, ok. I see your point. We agree then.
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Terraforming and manned exploration could occur in parallel.
Yeah, that works really well in all the movies.
KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAN! [khaaan.com]
Re:FTA: (Score:5, Insightful)
Can we ever conclusively determine that there is no life on Mars?
Given that we are still uncovering life in the most unlikely places on Earth, who knows where it could be found on Mars. Do we need to look under every rock, and take a billion core samples before we are satisfied that the introduction of terrestrial life will not destroy any chance of finding native life?
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The thing about life is it tends to spread. Chances are if we find nothing from taking a sampling from about 20 different areas and find nothing, there's a pretty good chance there is nothing.
Re:NASA is not interested in proving the negative (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm perpetually amused that folks whine how we can't replace an old-growth forest or rainforest but terraforming a planet, hey, no problem there. All you need to do is sprinkle a little spores and fairy dust and boom you have Earth II, except without all the people mucking it up...
You asked the question and answered it at the same time. Life is very resilient to most anything short of more aggressive life. The old growth forests actually require less effort to fix than to kick-start mars. All you have to do is leave them alone for awhile and they would recover on their own. Keeping people from continuing to drag them down further is the trick. Mars has the edge here in that it's very hard for US to screw it up.
It's more economical to spend $500mil to start an ecosystem that will maintain and develop itself without further interaction, fertilized only with time, than to spend $100mil every few years trying to keep fixing up what people keep breaking, and still continue to lose ground.
Re:FTA: (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, while the soil may very well be conducive to growing asparagus, the temperatures most certainly are not. Asparagus is fairly hardy (depending on the cultivar), relatively speaking; but surviving -70C (or even -70F) is too much to ask of the plant.
I must say this is the first time my knowledge of vegetable gardening has ever come in handy on Slashdot!
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True, but if it exists elsewhere... water, soil, greenhouse with insulating cover for nighttime = food and oxygen. Terraforming Mars may be way, way off but if we could actually establish farms it'd be a huge asset for any expedition or colony there. A lot of the supplies to the ISS is food, the moon is a barren rock, but if Mars can sustain itself with the basics having a permanent colony doesn't look that unlikely anymore.
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Yes, because scientists are totally saying that climate change is 100% caused by humans. *eyeroll*
Re:FTA: (Score:5, Funny)
Well, that's easy, Monsanto has a patent on growing produce in off-world ecologies. Clearly NASA does not have the budget to pay Monsanto royalties
Re:FTA: (Score:5, Funny)
I bet they don't read Slashdot though.
Of course not. Slashdot is more interesting than asparagus, though sometimes not as intelligent.
1 cubic meter? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Objects in picture are larger than they appear.
Seems like a HHGTTG scale issue. :) Be careful which words you choose.
MadCow.
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In a related martian breakthrough [spaceflightnow.com], apparently an asteroid hit Mars with an energy of "1029 joules, which is equivalent to 100 billion gigatons of TNT."
I assume they meant 10^29 J. But still, the inability of most scientific journalist's to even check the plausibility of their figures is astounding.
Re:1 cubic meter? (Score:5, Insightful)
In a related martian breakthrough [spaceflightnow.com], apparently an asteroid hit Mars with an energy of "1029 joules, which is equivalent to 100 billion gigatons of TNT."
I assume they meant 10^29 J. But still, the inability of most scientific journalist's to even check the plausibility of their figures is astounding.
Re:1 cubic meter? (Score:4, Informative)
I found that to be rather large as well, but according to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
The Robotic Arm (RA) is designed to extend 2.35 m from its base on the lander, and have the ability to dig down to 0.5 m below the surface.
However, I still doubt that they actually scooped up 1^3 meter of soil, but rather parts of an area that is 1^3 meter...
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I noticed that, too. And they got it from one inch below the surface. Not impossible, but quite a feat for a remotely controlled robot with a teeny-tiny scoop and a relatively short arm.
Asparagus (Score:4, Funny)
AP News Article (Score:3, Informative)
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j1hvRUNc9W-3lupLU6TLQtR0gdRAD91I04D01 [google.com]
Some quotes...
Preliminary results showed the soil had a pH between 8 and 9, researchers said. A pH less than 7 means the solution is acidic, while a pH over 7 means it is salty. Phoenix also detected the presence of magnesium, sodium, potassium and chloride in the mixture.
"It's typical of the soil here on Earth minus the organics," Kounaves said during a teleconference from Tucson, Ariz. ...
The heating experiment, which was designed to look for organics, did not yield conclusive evidence of carbon. Scientists planned to study another soil sample taken from further below the surface.
Re:AP News Article (Score:5, Informative)
Wait... pH over 7 means a solution is "salty"? Salts are electrically neutral; surely they meant "alkaline" or "basic".
Re:AP News Article (Score:5, Informative)
umm...pH over 7 means alkaline, not salty.
Re:AP News Article (Score:5, Informative)
Ocean is usually ph 8.5 or higher. However, in some areas on the planet earth the soil has high ph value (not acid). Plants do well in that type of soil, as do most living things.
Re:AP News Article (Score:5, Interesting)
i.e. We're still missing the magic ingredient: Nitrogen. Getting a sufficient quantity of nitrates to Mars might end up being the biggest problem with colonization efforts in the future. We obviously have water. CO2 can be reprocessed into O2.
The soil is not toxic. Now all we need is Nitrogen and a good method of bootstraping industrial production on Mars. (Shipping heavier technology would be impractical.)
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That's news to me! Last I heard, the concern was that there was practically no nitrates on Mars. Your information completes the picture. We have pretty much all the necessary base elements necessary to survive on Mars. With the right engineering to solve the industrial issue, we are getting close to knowing everything we need to know to colonize!
No spluh! (Score:2)
What did the Buggalo graze on anyway? (Score:2)
Just be careful that they don't brand you when you get there.
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To quote Sealab 2021... (Score:2)
"With six Dr. Quinns, we can teraform Mars - and do it RIGHT this time! ...Yeeeah!"
--Dr. Quinn, "Lost in Time" episode
P.S. "Take that, subspace!" --Stormy
So... (Score:2)
Ok so how many asteroids do we need to crash into Mars to give it some greenhouse gases and an atmosphere similar to Earth's?
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In fact, it's possible that a collision was responsible for destroying a previous Earth-like atmosphere on Mars.
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
You'll want to be crashing comets into Mars, not asteriods. After all, what is crashing a rock into Mars going to do, apart from adding a new crater? Crashing a couple of megatons of CO2, H2O, and other gasses into Mars, well that's a different story. Not only do you get your brand new crater, but you add a couple of megatons of C02, H2O, and other gasses to the atmosphere.
Exciting! (Score:2)
That's some interesting stuff, especially the fact that there's nothing they found in the soil that was toxic. Now if only there was more funding towards going anywhere with this information.
Martian Red (Score:5, Funny)
Martian pot is what I'm waiting for. I'm sure it would be outta this world.
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Re:Martian Red (Score:4, Funny)
There is a large contingent of Slashdot posters in Amsterdam apparently.
Re:Martian Red (Score:5, Funny)
Given the gravity differences, an ounce of of pot on Mars would get you *much* higher.
Only a 'might'? (Score:2, Funny)
They've already found the water. Why didn't they send up some seeds?
Re:Only a 'might'? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, the *soil* might be capable of supporting Asparagus, but the seeds might not like the temperature, atmosphere, or ambient radiation.
NEWS FLASH! (Score:5, Funny)
I can see the headlines now in all the papers, when this quote goes mainstream;
TOP SCIENTIST CLAIM MARS SOIL SUPPORTS ASPARAGUS LIKE LIFE FORMS!
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No kidding. A while ago, I read about a 8-year study that was conducted on health. They took a few thousand people, followed them for 8 years, measuring dietary information periodically. IIRC they found that, of those who died of natural (non-accidental) causes, a statistically significant number of them had low levels of vitamin D in their diet.
Correct statement: Of those subjects deceased over the course of the study, a significant group had low vitamin D intake.
The headline in my local newspaper,
Asparagus on Mars (Score:5, Funny)
Just more evidence that Big Asparagus has co-opted our national science agenda.
Life? (Score:2, Insightful)
And why am I unable to write in short sentences?
Re:Life? (Score:5, Informative)
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Because we stamped each microorganism with "Made on Earth"?
What guarantee do we have that life on Earth isn't the result of contamination from meteorite impacts?
Why? Because.
Any other veggies?? (Score:2)
The Soil, Maybe, But What About the Environment? (Score:5, Interesting)
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That's it, I'm joining People for the Ethical Treatment of Asparagus! How dare they send cute little innocent asparagii off to Mars! Don't you know plants have feelings too?
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That's it, I'm joining People for the Ethical Treatment of Asparagus!
Re:The Soil, Maybe, But What About the Environment (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The Soil, Maybe, But What About the Environment (Score:5, Insightful)
Terraforming? (Score:2)
So what happens if we start firing off missions to try and seed life? Without much of an atmosphere, would we need a dome of some sort? How would temperature extremes be moderated?
Life on Mars (Score:5, Funny)
Farnsworth: Well, in those days, Mars was just a dreary uninhabitable wasteland. Much like Utah. But unlike Utah, it was eventually made livable.
Someone please create asparagus version of this... (Score:2)
Future suspicions... (Score:2)
Now I'm going to be really suspicious should the next lander actually find Asparagus ...
Mars Needs Asparagus! (Score:2)
Seriously. They do.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060672/ [imdb.com]
Funding Required For New Mars Mission! (Score:5, Funny)
WASHINGTON -- NASA has submitted funding proposals for a new Mars mission, scheduled to launch in 2012. The mission will entail a new Mars lander called the Advanced Series Polymorphic Asparagus Research Automated Growing Unit Seedfarm, or ASPARAGUS, and is expected to grow several varieties of asparagus in martian soil.
"[We] might be able to grow asparagus in it really well... It is very exciting for us" says Sam Kounaves, mission planner for the new endevour.
The lander will be expected to gather soil and deposit it into a 'grow-op' like container, where asparagus seeds will be added to the mix. "We just don't know what will happen after that, it will be very exciting to watch the developments unfold over subsequent weeks." he adds.
Included in the lander will be a CD filled with asparagus recipies for future astronauts of the first manned Mars mission, planned for 2050. "The CD will contain dozens of recipies all featuring asparagus as the main ingredient. Things like boiled asparagus, steamed asparagus, steam boiled asparagus, fried asparagus, and even just plain asparagus!" says Angela Schmidt, the mission's asparagus habilitation expert.
The $480 million project is expected to be greenlit later this year.
Well, looks like we can start planting (Score:2)
Arrakis == Saudi Arabia (Score:2, Insightful)
The spice == oil etc.
HTH
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I am intrigued. What is this "sex with a beautiful woman" of which you speak? Does she like asparagus?
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Annual sales of Microsoft Windows, $8b
Annual sales of popcorn in the US, $1b
One day in Iraq, $300M.
Sending an intelligent lander to Mars and establishing that it could support life, priceless.
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470 million dollars is a lot of money.
A drop in the bucket compared to what we spend on Britney Spears albums, Monster truck races and twinkies.
No one is ever going to go there and return alive.
Famous last words.
There's nothing there that justifies the incredible expense when there are so many other pressing needs for humanity.
There is the advancement of human knowledge. NASA's exploration projects have been the birthplace of a whole ton of human innovation. As we find ways to overcome the challenges that space exploration represents, we develop knowledge, materials and techniques that help us here on Earth. You may not value the pursuit of the advancement of human knowledge, but thankfully others do.
They know that they are contributing nothing with all this expenditure, and as long as the public funds are spent on them, they don't care.
I
Re:What every Mars Lander story needs... (Score:5, Insightful)
The entertainments you call fitting for adults strike me as juvenile pursuits. I would never seek to make it illegal for you to pursue them, but please clearly understand, I will never accept your claim that these interests make you a more mature adult human being.
Bringing about the birth of living worlds from previously dead worlds may be an impossible dream, as you claim, but the beauty of its potential is stirring enough to make it a worthy goal for a mature intelligent species.
If we fail to achieve this goal on Mars, we can and should find other planets where it can succeed. If we also fail to do that, it will be because we allowed ourselves to be distracted by short term pleasures such as those you describe, or because we followed your siren call to pour all our resources into repeatedly failing "solutions" for perennial problems such as poverty or disease. By all means, let us continue trying to solve humanity's problems on this planet. But don't use that as an excuse to shut down all space exploration efforts.
I care about humanity more deeply than you seem to be able to imagine. I care enough to want a future for humanity that extends beyond the lifespan of any single planet, beyond the lifespan of any single star system, and if possible, beyond the lifespan of any single galaxy. How is this any less mature than the desire of parents to hope their children and grandchildren might continue to prosper for many future generations?
If we fail to secure such a future for our descendants, the end result might very well be a sterile, dead universe, where nobody else will ever again have the chance to enjoy sex, skydiving, skiing or anything else adults do for excitement.
Bringing Mars to life may be so difficult it approaches the impossible. But it may be the best place to take the first step toward opening up the universe for humankind, and that makes it worth the effort.
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And yet somehow what every Mars Lander story ends up with is some fucking pathetic, overly long comment about how we're wasting our time and how the money should be spent elsewhere from some self-important, completely out of touch windbag who believes that the things that we should be pursuing in life are utterly pointless five minute flash-in-the-pan adrenaline events done purely for brief personal entertainment.
Anyway,
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Except that believers in so-called "intelligent design" don't need reasons to believe it. The one reason they have is Genesis, Chapter 1.
If a god had designed the Universe and wanted you to know about it, you would know by now -- the evidence would be irrefutable. I submit that either (a) no god designed the Universe, or (b) a god designed the Universe and doesn't think humanity has need-to-know access to the fact. I won't rule out (b), but I think that