Mars Rover Sniffs First Hint of Water?

mhw25 writes "It is reported that the Mars rover Spirit is already well into its scientific mission, and may be detecting hints of water. The mini-Thermal Emission Spectrometer has returned its first image, with probable evidence of carbonates and hydrated minerals. We may know more after the rover rolls off its landing base, after making a 120 degree turn to avoid the airbag blocking its front ramp, to start analyses on soil from Thursday or Friday. An ongoing intrigue is already developing - a scientist reckoned that some of the soil around the airbag 'looks like mud, but it can't be mud'."

hydrated minerals?

[gr8_phk]

"evidence of carbonates and hydrated minerals"

Isn't that what commets are primarily composed of? I fully expect H2O molecules to be present on Mars and every other planet. This should not be a suprise to anyone.

Re:intrigue

[NanoGator]

"I am curious though as to why they dont think it could be mud if they are indeed suspicious of water being present?"

Nasa doesn't like to operate that way. They don't want to finger a suspect and look at only proof that it's what they're after. Instead, they want to look at all the data and try to learn everything they can.

Seems to me they're just avoiding being overly zealous in their approach. In the process of proving something does exist, you risk avoiding the evidence that it doesn't.

yes, well

[rritterson]

It looks like mud, but it can't be mud.

Yeah, just like that picture of a rock from mars looks like a face but can't be a face, and that picture of that smoke looks like the image of satan, etc...

So what if it just looks like mud? It's a freaking lo-res black and white photograph! I'll be intrigued when you say It feels like mud and is a mixture of soil and water, but it can't be mud!

Re:intrigue

[BWJones]

because as far as we can tell water cant exist in a liquid state on mars.

Ah, but how much water is the question. Certainly atmospheric pressures would indicate that large volumes of water may not be possible unless they were seeping or somehow otherwise protected from atmospheric effects. So, a correlative question might also be, how much water would be required for particle wetting to provide enough cohesiveness? I don't really know and my background is not in materials science but if the dust particles were small enough, perhaps a few water molecules could provide enough van der walls forces to hold the material together enough to resemble mud?

Re:intrigue

[BWJones]

Because the surface air temperature is never above freezing (usually between -40 to -60 degrees.)

But how many water molecules do you need for ice crystal formation? Also atmospheric pressures are low indicating much liquid water would sublimate rather quickly. However if there were just a few water molecules interspersed relatively uniformly amongst the dust particles you might not get ice formation per se. Rather you might get an extra degree of molecular bonding allowing for a cohesiveness of fine grained particles?

Re:"Looks like mud, but it can't be mud" ???

[The Bungi]

Actually it would probably boil first. Freezing is a much slower process. The lack of atmospheric pressure would get to it long before the temperature ever did.

NASA has lost its edge to the ESA

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems that NASA has actually lost the edge in robotic space exploration. Remember this little gem of a story [slashdot.org] submitted by someone from Switzerland and posted by Michael(who else).

Re:"Looks like mud, but it can't be mud" ???

[Abcd1234]

It would evaporate. IOW, vaporize. IOW, transition to gaseous form. This effect can actually be observed by boiling water at different altitudes. At sea level, water boils at around 100C. At higher altitudes, the boiling point is less, due to lower atmospheric pressure. Mars is just a really extreme case (ie, VERY low atmospheric pressure), and as such, the water would boil at a relatively low temperature. Possibly low enough that, rather than freeze on the surface, it would evaporate.

Re:intrigue

[GabeK]

I'm guessing that its more of a simple issue of temperature. The rover is currently operating in -19degs F.

Re:When will they learn

[Sgt York]

You actually think NASA should sit on anything from Spirit until it has been published in Nature? Can you imagine the public outcry? Spirit lands, and they don't say anything except "Look at the pretty pictures! No, we won't tell you what we've found. Yes it is moving around and everything's working fine, but we won't tell you anything until publication. You'll just have to wait." The public would go apeshit. The people on /. would be out for blood. With a program this big, they can't sit on everything they find, it's just a fact of modern life. They are doing their best by keeping everything low key. Lots of "maybes" and "appears-to-bes" and "looks likes"

Even once it has been released into the peer reviewed world, it will be sensationalized. How many times has there been a panacea cure for cancer published in Science? If you read the NYT, you'd say dozens. If you read Science, you'd say never.

Re:As a lowly engineer...

[Geeyzus]

They aren't saying exactly that. They don't rule out the possibility that life could exist in other forms. They simply already KNOW that life can exist where there is liquid water present, so they are trying to find some of that as proof that life we know of can or did exist there. In other words, they don't know what else to look for right now, so until they stumble across other forms of life, water is the #1 thing to look for.

Mark

Re:Planting Life

[cmpalmer]

I'm pretty sure the highs get well above -40 C in the temperate and equitorial areas.

One particularly nasty thing about Martian soil (and one that would preclude planting most Earth plants -- even in greenhouses using Martian soil) is the high concentration of superoxides in the soil, making it like OxyClean. Earth's extremophiles, however, make me wary about making blanket statements that "life couldn't evolve or exist" in those conditions.

Re:How are we supposed to know

[BTWR]

How are we supposed to know that any of this evidence or these results are even real?

You can't. You're a conspiracy theorist, and can't be convinced of anything.

the MER team knew the exact results that they wanted this mission to produce years before launch

And similarly, you conspiracy theorists have already decided that the Mars landings which haven't even begun being built yet are fake.

Re:"Looks like mud, but it can't be mud" ???

[r00zky]

Following his theory:
Maybe temperature in the poles is low enough that freezing occurs before boiling.
Then, water in other latitudes would evaporate, get transported to the poles by wind and freeze there. Accumulating over time, drying the rest of the planet and drawing a nice white pole.

Disclaimer: I have no idea that could be even feasible.

Re:intrigue

[DrSkwid]

Kelvin and Celcius are the same but with different Zero points.

I think it is easier to visualize the freezing/boiling point of water as a reference in the same way it is easier to visualize 1 litre of water weighing 1 kilo.

but that's me

Re:This Just In

[Penguinshit]

And if it did? So what?

The "What" is if proof of even simple microorganisms is found (whether in fossil or extant organic form), that proves that life on Earth is not a singular event and lends credence to the notion that life might be widespread throughout the Universe.

That would be a huge beginning to an answer to a question which Mankind has posited since it developed an ability to form questions.

So yeah, it's pretty important.

Fahrenheits are obsolete

[Scrameustache]

Fahrenheit is well suited to the human condition on earth.

That's why when talking about robots on mars its utterly absurd.

0 F is roughly the coldest temperature people most people experience in

I'm Canadian you short-sleeved wuss!
I bet you've never walked out to find that all the humidity in you nose froze up all at once when you inhaled...some people never lived.

And I think that most of humanity actually lives in tropical climes, where 0F pretty much never happens.

and 100 F the hottest (obviously there are greater extremes, but we're talking about the bulk of the population).

We have this newfangled thing called "fire" nowadays, gets quite a bit hotter than 38 degrees (what you'd call 100)...

Ovens also happen to work very well on the fahrenheit scale (200 F - 500 F).

Yeah, I tried to set an oven to 200 celcius once and the fabric of space time caved in! It was the darndest thing!

Seriously, devices work well with the unit they were designed to work with? Wow! What an insight!

Basing temperature on a random molecule's states at a specific atmospheric pressure is fairly arbitrary and has little to do with the human condition.

Yeah, random.
I mean, its what we are mostly made of! And if you don't drink any of it for 3 days you die. 70% of our planet is covered in it. Yeah, it has SO little to do with the human condition! Hell, most people have never even seen water! Totally random, totally unrellated to the human condition.