New Images Reveal Pure Water Ice On Mars

Matt_dk writes "Images of recent impact craters taken by the HiRISE Camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have revealed sub-surface water ice halfway between the north pole and the equator on Mars. While the Phoenix lander imaged subsurface ice where the top layer of soil had been disturbed at the landing site near the north pole, these new images — taken in quick succession, detecting how the ice sublimated away — are the first to show evidence of water ice at much lower latitudes. Surprisingly, the white ice may be made from 99 percent pure water."

What does that tell us?

[Strange Quark Star]

Get your ass to Mars, ... Get your ass to Mars, ... Get your ass to Mars, ...
And build a reactor that we can then start to release the water into the atmosphere.

Re:Lets colonize!

[AK Dave]

The claims look as spurious as cold fusion, and despite obvious violations of the laws of thermodynamics the idiots love to talk about how "hydrogen fuel cells" are recharged from "tap water" as if releasing hydrogen from water to use in a fuel cell didn't consume more energy than it makes available. So, you're right: water as an energy source doesn't make sense. But I'm still surprised that we're not already talking about using it as such.

Re:What does that tell us?

[TheBilgeRat]

I am guessing there isn't quite enough to make a working atmo, but perhaps enough at least to support a mining colony. I agree-time to go!

Re:Whoa

[PitaBred]

Uranium won't get us back off the planet. Solar works well enough for short-term power, even all the way out at Mars. But it's a death sentence to explore Mars without enough fuel to get us back off the ground, so if we can find something we can use/refine as return fuel, it'll make an initial trip that much more likely.

Re:Lets colonize!

[hoggoth]

Yes, not only is Fusion power only 30 years away, but personal flying jet-packs are only 10 years away, and true Artificial Intelligence is only 20 years away.
The future is looking bright!

Re:Whoa

[swimin]

Water + Solar/Nuclear = Return flight.

Re:Another blow to the no life on Mars crowd

[Trepidity]

I'm not sure that's really dogma. Sure, it's not widely accepted that there is life on Mars, and a number of people think it's unlikely, but there's quite a lot [amazon.com] of fairly open discussion [nasa.gov] about the possibility [nasa.gov].

Re:Lets colonize!

[MichaelSmith]

If you need to get off mars then water (H+O) on the surface is in exactly the right place. Obviously the ability to make fuel outside the gravity well would be handy as well.

Re:Another blow to the no life on Mars crowd

[PotatoFarmer]

I see no evidence to convince me that any type of life exists on Mars, now, or ever.

That's probably because the type of life you seem to have in mind is pretty specific - by the rest of your comment: intelligent, large enough to be visible, and both located near and willing to interact with things that we've dropped on the surface.

There's a lot of living stuff right here at home that doesn't fit any of those categories, so there's no reason to automatically assume that there can't be any life at all on Mars.

Re:Lets colonize!

[wizardforce]

The more we learn about the physics of fusion the more we realize that we did not grasp all of the complexities of building a working fusion reactor. We've gone from Q 10 for a commercial reactor so we are at least getting closer to our goal of commercial fusion. The question is whether the upward trend in Q gains will continue in the future. If they do then it is quite conceivable that we will have a prototype reactor up and running in 30 years, if not, we'll learn a lot about the physics involved.

Re:Too Bad We Won't Be Colonizing Mars Anytime Soo

[khallow]

Rocket propulsion is dangerous, extremely expensive and rather primitive when you think about it.

State of the art, it is.

Luckily for the world, a new form of transportation and energy production technology will arrive soon, one based on the realization that we are immersed in an immense ocean of energetic particles. This is a consequence of a reevaluation of our understanding of the causality of motion. Soon, we'll have vehicles that can move at tremendous speeds and negotiate right angle turns without slowing down and without incurring damages due to inertial effects. Floating cities, unlimited clean energy, earth to Mars in hours, New York to Beijing in minutes... That's the future of energy and travel.

Observation first, flying cities later. We haven't observed hypothetical effects that would allow the technologies you causally (heh heh) list. And an immense ocean of energetic particles and "causality of motion" (whatever that means, if anything) do not imply flying cities. Show us the effect experimentally before you tell us how wonderful it will be.

There is no such thing

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no such thing called "99% pure water". If it is not 100%, it is not pure.

Re:Whoa

[kimvette]

Rockets are more efficient in a less dense atmosphere. There is less ambient pressure working against the exhaust, and there is less against the vehicle vehicle itself.