Water Discovery Is Good News For Mars Colonists 247
astroengine writes "By now, we probably all know that there was once significant quantities of water on the Martian surface and, although the red planet is bone dry by terrestrial standards, water persists as ice just below the surface to this day. Now, according to a series of new papers published in the journal Science, NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity has found that the Mars topsoil is laced with surprisingly high quantities of the wet stuff. And this could be good news for future Mars colonists. 'If you take a cubic foot of that soil you can basically get two pints of water out it — a couple of water bottles like you'd take to the gym, worth of water,' Curiosity scientist Laurie Leshin, of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, N.Y., told Discovery News."
Re:Great, let's send plants (Score:5, Informative)
Re:How much is that in shot glasses? (Score:3, Informative)
I thought since a certain missed orbital maneuver, people talking about Mars had agreed to only use metric...
Scientists studying Mars have only used metric for decades. American reporters only use imperial units. If you don't translate for them, they nearly always mess up the conversion. As far as that failed orbital maneuver, it was the defense contractor that use imperial units. As I said before, NASA and the scientists have used metric exclusively for a very long time.
Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Great, let's send plants (Score:5, Informative)
Magnetism, actually. The magnetosphere (all the best names have been taken by old discoveries, btw) keep solar winds from stripping away the atmosphere of a planet. [wikipedia.org] That and, you know, gravity to keep the air stuck to the surface.