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'."

intrigue

[BWJones]

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'."

In a bioengineering course I took once we were playing around with various materials prior to creating various cements and I found that many very fine grained ultra dry powders exhibited qualities one might presume were qualities exhibited in mud. Specifically, the appearance of folding up in waves like there were some bonding force holding things together when pushed. Applying various degrees of static charges to the materials appeared to amplify these effects allowing for clumping as well.

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

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

[ThisIsAnExampleAccou]

Forgive my Astrophysics ignorance, but can someone explain this quote:

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

I skimmed the article, and did not see it explained anywhere. Why, exactly, can it not be mud?

Thanks in advance!

Re:This Just In

[hcg50a]

400 years ago, it was not known that they were ice.

In fact, it is only within that last 40 or so years that one of them was known to be primarily water ice, and the other was known to be primarily dry ice (ie., frozen CO2).

The significance of today's discovery is that there is more evidence that there was liquid water (not just ice) present when some of the rocks around the Rover were formed.

Best page for up to the minute news?

[spaceman harris]

I've been looking around various sites, but mostly keeping up with news about Spirit through google news. What is THE best site for up to the minute reports?

Re:When will they learn

[John Jorsett]

Not to announce major scientific discoveries in the press before they have been properly peer-reviewed?

If they tried to keep it under wraps, the Area 51ers would be accusing NASA of a coverup. Besides, it's pretty tough to keep any sort of secret these days, and it's probably better to put out some bad info and have to retract it than having leakers with their own agendas putting out a distorted and fragmented view.

Don't jump

[toxic666]

to conclusions based upon early data before the rover has even "hit the road." We'll be getting more and better data.

As an example. One of my geology profs was studying an outcropping of calcium-rich meta-igneous rock (meta basalt). He kept finding a mix of calcium oxalate minerals on the surface of the rock in numerous places, but couldn't understand how they would be a weathering product. Oxalate minerals are unusual in nature.

Then it dawned on him. Oxalates are common in kidney stones. He bought a live trap and captured several wild rats. Then he kept them in a lab and realized they like to urinate in the same place. What appeared to be a strange chemical weathering reaction was actually just evaporated rat urine.

Point is, first impressions may be incorrect and additional data and study leads to more accurate conclusions. Sometimes those later conclusions are more interesting (or comical) than the original hypothesis.

Re:When will they learn

[Anonymous Coward]

All the instruments are using well known science.

Which means absolute results like, "My God its full carbonate!" is not in doubt.

What is open to speculation is that carbonate means there was water there.

Re:intrigue

[Fr33z0r]

Liquid water can indeed exist on the Martian surface - fleetingly admittedly, it would boil off at a very very low temperature, but there would certianly be a window between the point the ice melts, and the water boils.

Microscope needed!

[DumbSwede]

Too bad beagle doesn't appear to have survived landing on mars. From the description of its mission it seemed more directed at finding evidence of life more directly. NASA seems to have concluded the Viking data was the last word on the subject and would rather gather indirect evidence of life for now, rather than direct evidence and have it seem a failure if none is discovered. Viking sat on the Mars for years transmitting back data. I imagine the most useful info would have been transmitted in the first days after a complete scan had been made of the area. Now granted Spirit and Opportunity can wheel around to new local each day, but most of the data will be of the nature Hey-NASA-I've-Found-Another-Red-Rock. How much better to have a decent microscope that can scan unending detail in samples taken. Some say the stew of nutrients Viking used showed circadian rhythm like responses. Had this been true biological activity, no doubt a microscopic examination would have shown the beasties, regardless of their chemistry. Speaking of chemistry, Viking only seemed to include one nutrient mix. For fauna adapted to a desicating environment, one can only wonder if perhaps they drowned the poor buggers.

All and all, I don't understand why a range of microscopes has not been standard issue on all Mars lander missions.

As a lowly engineer...

[madcow_ucsb]

...and not a scientist, I've always wondered...Why do we feel like all life *needs* water? Who's to say the martians don't live on nitrogen or uranium or plaine old red rocks? Or that they don't thrive on some yet undiscovered stuff.

I know I don't have a clue what I'm talking about (hence posting to /. :), but it always seems silly to me when NASA keeps says "we need to find the water to find the life!" Says who?

Possible Mud Theory ?

[polyp2000]

Maybe the soil in the area of the rover was once mud (before it was frozen) and the bouncy air bags were so f**king hot when they bounced on the ground that it melted the mud and left funny patterns?

Of course... by now though, it'll be frozen again.

Planting Life

[the_mad_poster]

Aren't there certain bacteria that can survive the long, harsh trip through space? What if they were attached since liftoff, survived the trip through space, survived the burn in the thin atmosphere, and wound up being deposited in a somewhat moist area? Even if there wasn't MUCH water, if there was SOME water, they could, in theory, manage to survive slightly under the surface. Even the tiniest petri dish could wind up with a breeding ground for life on Mars and so long as there's some atmosphere to contain the water and the gases emitted by the bacteria, it could be a spark for future life on Mars.

Sorry if I'm rambling illogically. I'm not well versed in the Martian atmosphere, so feel free to shoot my naive, young hopes down if I'm totally out in left field.

What would really set everyone off..

[TheVampire]

is if Rovers camera spotted a fossil in the 'mud"...

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

[Fr33z0r]

It's below freezing on the surface (no atmosphere to retain heat). Not to mention that whole thin atmosphere thing doesn't provide enough pressure to prevent liquid water from boiling away anyway.

Actually, I think you're wrong on both points here, in Gusev, during the daytime, it's warmer on the surface than it is where I live right now, and the rivers here still flow, my cat's water bowl doesn't freeze over, and it rains regularly. Once you get a few feet off the surface it's a different story, but the temperature is certainly capable of sustaining liquid water.

As for the low atmospheric pressure, the triple-point of water is 6.1mbar, and Mars' surface atmospheric pressure varies between 3-10 (or thereabouts) - Gusev, being a crater in the lowlands is probably at the high end of that scale, and comfortably above the triple point of water.

I could be wrong of course, but let's see over the next few days what comes back from spirit (I'm not saying we'll find water, just that we may very well find conditions where water *could* exist in a liquid state)

Re:Planting Life

[solarlux]

I'm not a biologist, although I'm pretty sure bacterial reproduction on Mars is unlikely. I believe the coldest temperatures at which we've seen Earth bacteria multiply is only -30 C or thereabouts, which is believe is above the Martian highs (~ -40 C). I doubt lingering nonreproductive (albeit surviving) smatterings would trigger a false positive.

If we do detect life or life remnants, future sample retrievals will be able to make the final call certain. Of particular interest would be the discover of a replication process different from RNA/DNA (the basis of all life reproduction on Earth).

Re:intrigue

[Fr33z0r]

Well, I'm not sure, say water melts at 0C on Mars, but due to the low atmospheric pressure it boils off at 2 - if it stays at 1C all day long then wouldn't the water be in a liquid state all day?

(I'm not being cheeky with this response - it's a genuine question, I have my assumptions, but I'm no physicist :D)

Re:intrigue

[Fr33z0r]

I neglected to mention, there's also the possibility of salts in the water, if it's salty, it wouldn't need to get up to zro to melt, and it would have a larger window before succumbing to the low atmospheric pressure and boiling off.

Re:intrigue

[GabeK]

This also means that the likelihood of finding mud is a tad on the remote side, seeing as how mud is dirt with liquid water in it.

For future missions

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they should put some sort of a wedge on future rovers. After landing, perhaps the first rover act will be to turn over the egress pad and sniff underneath to see what the landing stirred up.

Planting Life, Inadvertently or Purposefully

[d3m057h3n35]

Most spacecraft, especially those which are on missions to other planets, etc. undergo strict procedures to prevent the scenario you have mentioned. The contamination of other celestial bodies is not desired, especially if there is a risk of eliminating existing life in the process. This is why Galileo was flown into Jupiter to destroy it, because the chance of it crashing into Europa (which has life potential) was to great. I wonder, however, if we'll ever try to terraform planets such as Mars or Venus using bacteria, algae, or other methods to produce a livable atmosphere. If we don't discover any life on Mars, but find enough water, I think that would be the next logical step.

Re: Water, Water Everywhere

[MissMarvel]

The prevalence of Hematite on Mars strongly suggests there was an abundance of water on the planet at some point in its history. Hematite, an oxide of iron and a compound chemically similiar to rust, forms in the presence of water.

Of course, Mars may have been bombarded with a bunch of Hematite asteroids, but it seems unlikely given the absence of craters.

Re:As a lowly engineer...

[ralf_malf]

Always wondered the same thing, found this link after watching the Nova special on PBS. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/mars/essential.html

Airbag Contents ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any thoughts on the possibility that the contents of the airbags (whatever it is) has contaminated the surrounding environment ?

Shouldn't we wait until the rover has cleared the landing site before getting our hopes up ?

Re:intrigue

[Jordy]

Fahrenheit is well suited to the human condition on earth. 0 F is roughly the coldest temperature people most people experience in and 100 F the hottest (obviously there are greater extremes, but we're talking about the bulk of the population). 0 F is basically really cold and 100 F is really hot. Ovens also happen to work very well on the fahrenheit scale (200 F - 500 F).

Celsius is just plain silly. 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.

Kelvin makes sense for science, but little else.

Re:Water

[isomeme]

Due to the low triple point of water on Mars, and the theory that it's just coming out of an ice-age, there's every chance there is no liquid left around there to melt, but there's certainly a chance there is.

The triple point (at which solid, gas, and liquid phases are in equilibrium) doesn't change from planet to planet; it's a fixed temperature and pressure pair for any given material.

For water, the triple point is 273.16 K at 611.2 Pa. That pressure is about twice the highest found in the lowest parts of the Martian surface. As a result, any liquid water on the surface will very quickly change phase to ice, vapor, or (most likely) some of both phases.

The nice thing for would-be Martian terraformers is that you only have to double Mars's surface pressure to begin to make liquid water stable in low-lying parts of the surface. Even there, it would freeze solid every night and most days, but you'd get *some* periods where the water might stay liquid for hours at a time during the local afternoon.

Re:intrigue

[Ted Williams' Frozen]

Wrong.

Sublimation is a well known process where ice can go to a vapor state without becoming a liquid first.

This is first year chemistry stuff!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sublimation

air bag?

[tonythejuice]

The typical earth airbag combusts hydrocarbons -- making co2 and water... What was in this airbag? I think hydrocarbons are a poor energy carrier per weight -- so maybe their airbag was a h2/o2 one? in any event -- possible contamination from airbag, anyone?

Re:air bag?

[andreMA]

Actually the content of an automotive airbag after deployment is mostly nitrogen, from the combustion (detonation?) of sodium azaide:

This causes the solid chemical propellant sealed inside the inflator, principally sodium azide, to undergo a rapid chemical reaction. This reaction produces primarily nitrogen gas.

From Airbag Guidelines [terc.org]. None of this, of course, necessarily has any bearing on the Mars landers, nor would the extremely rapid inflation typical of automotive airbags be necessary. Something like a small cylinder of compressed nitrogen would do nicely.

Really? The ICR would disagree...

[Hamster Lover]

First, I grew up in what I consider a conservative Christian home and I have spent a lifetime trying to overcome the misconceptions, prejudices and outright falsehoods feed to me as a child. That does not mean that ALL Christianity treats knowledge, science and scientific inquiry with the same disdain, but I certainly experienced the depths of ignorance that is possible in Christianty.

The Institute for Creation Research, ICR, a conservative Christian group, would have you believe otherwise. In fact, they would hold that you are not a true Christian unless you believe the Bible to be absolute and inerrant.

See their comments on life on other planets here:

www.icr.org/bible/bhta31.html

Also, note that I said conservative Christians, considered to be a small but influencial part of Christianity. There are many denominations to Christianity -- Baptists, Evangelicals, Catholics, Protestants, Methodists, Church of Christ, etc., so perhaps you need to look it up yourself:

www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8& oe =UTF-8&safe=off&q=christian+denominations

Despite what you say, many Christian groups, conservative or otherwise, view exploration for life on other planets anywhere from skepticism to outright heresy and have used their influence in the current administration to steer policy that is in many ways hostile to science and independant investigation.

My comment was that I am surprised that more attention has not been drawn by religious groups on science that has the potential to bring some of their most treasured tenets into disrepute. There are implications to life on other planets beyond their scientific discovery, you can't call me ignorant for pointing that out.

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