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Space Science

Mars Odyssey Detects Signs of Water 167

Posted by michael from the promising-news dept.
TheSync writes: "The BBC reports in an article that the Mars Odyssey spacecraft has detected large deposits of hydrogen at high latitudes using its neutron spectrometer. This may indicate significant water ice on the surface of Mars!"
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Mars Odyssey Detects Signs of Water More

Mars Odyssey Detects Signs of Water

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  • water-sign? (Score:1, Troll)

    by sl0ppy ( 454532 )
    as long as they don't find giant worms too, we're probably a-ok.

  • The key word is SURFACE ice (Score:4, Informative)

    by skrowl ( 100307 ) on Friday December 14, 2001 @06:11PM (#2705969) Homepage
    It's pretty much already been proven that subterrainian ice exists on the red planet. Surface Ice / Water could aid us in our eventually terraforming of Mars so we can go live there after we finish messing up the earth by over use of our natural resources and pollution.
    • Actually other than the ice at the poles, I'm pretty sure this is the first "proof" of subterrainian ice elsewhere.
    • I know that you were being somewhat sarcastic, but what "natural resources" are there on Mars? Once we deplete our current "natural" resources, I believe we are sh*t out of luck finding any on another planet... Might as well go drill in Alaska...
    • Just to be really anal about it: that would be subarean, not subterranean :-)


    • If what we humans have done to Mother Earth is any indication, a BIG "No Thanks !" is in order in the idea of "terraforming" the red planet.

      For after the "Terraforming" will follow "Terra-de-forming" and ultimately, "Terra-destruction".

      Until the day we humans know how to appreciate what we have - Planet Earth, - we have NO RIGHT to destroy another virgin planet.
  • From what I can recall, haven't they known about ice caps on Mars for a while?

    Or is it just that they didn't know if it was *water* ice or not?
    • I've got it. The actual article itself refers to the possible discovery of *water* on Mars.

      In the article they mention how they've known about the polar caps for years.

      Good, I'm not misremembering things.

    • Re:caps (Score:4, Funny)

      by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Friday December 14, 2001 @06:23PM (#2706015)
      From what I can recall, haven't they known about ice caps on Mars for a while?

      Or is it just that they didn't know if it was *water* ice or not?

      Of course it's water ice. Why would the Martians go to the trouble of building a planet-wide canal system if there was no water to fill them up?

    • Re:caps (Score:2, Informative)

      by PhuCknuT ( 1703 )
      They've known about water ice on mars for a while, at the poles. But what this article is about it large amounts of subterrainian ice in areas farther from the poles.
    • "Or is it just that they didn't know if it was *water* ice or not?"

      No, we've known for quite a while that the ice caps are frozen carbon dioxide, not hydrogen monoxide.

  • Terraforming? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by TheFlyingGoat ( 161967 )
    This, when combined with the earlier news [slashdot.org] regarding the eroding of the polar ice caps, would more easily allow some type of terraforming on Mars to occur. Drop in a bunch of plants that don't suck up much water and let them convert the Co2 to Oxygen. Now I wonder if it would actually work? :/

    • Re:Terraforming? (Score:2, Informative)

      by DocSnyder ( 10755 )

      Drop in a bunch of plants that don't suck up much water and let them convert the Co2 to Oxygen. Now I wonder if it would actually work? :/


      One problem is the thin Martian atmosphere, due to the low gravity. Pressure is about 1/100 of the atmospherie on Earth. That might be enough for some rigid plants, but they will certainly not produce a larger amount of oxygen. Even if they did, the pressure would still be too low for anyone to breathe.

      The other problem is contaminating a potentially existing Martian biosphere (tiny single-cell organisms, if at all) with "alien" life. Some micro organisms on Earth could easily stand the unfriendly life conditions on Mars and would cause an effect similiar to "Independence Day".

      IIRC, a few years ago the NASA planned to land on a Jupiter moon which they suspect for having water or even some evidence of life. After realizing that they'd contaminate it badly, they threw the vehicle into Jupiter...

    • Re:Terraforming? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Liquid(TJ) ( 318258 )
      It may be possible to make a shirtsleeve atmosphere that's heavier than the planet's natural atmosphere, then fill up a crator or other hole with it. Then put a small base at the bottom.
      There's stuff to worry about, like erosion and weather's effects, but as far as I know, no one's decided it wouldn't work.
    • Yeah, but even if it were viable, it would take centuries... I don't beleive we'll still be screwing around exclusively in the solar system by that time, but I'm an optimist...
    • Sure it would work. We'll call it "ChiaMars."

      Cha-Cha-Chia

      Derek
    • Nope plant also convert O2 to Co2, it is a lie and propaganda from greenpeace and ect that the forests are the lungs of our planet, the sea's are actualy i cant seem to find most of the links but you might want to look at this http://www.sprl.umich.edu/GCL/globalchange1/fall20 00/lectures/energyflo/energyflow.html
      http://www.gorick.u-net.com/page7.html

  • Official Page doesn't have the news (Score:3, Informative)

    by hether ( 101201 ) on Friday December 14, 2001 @06:14PM (#2705986)
    So why don't they have news about this on the offical 2001 Mars Odyssey page?

    http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/odyssey/ [nasa.gov]
  • Ice on mars? I'll go get my skates! :)

    But, seriously, what is the signifigance of finding ice on Mars? The link to the article wasn't too informative about it. I'd be interested on hearing from people-in-the-know about the subject. Can we use this water somehow? What's the big excitement?

    • Re:What's the signifigance.... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Spamalamadingdong ( 323207 ) on Friday December 14, 2001 @06:22PM (#2706010) Homepage Journal
      The significance may be that the neutron spectrometer is working. ;)

      Really, the significance depends on who you're talking to. To the geochemists, I'll bet it means that there are probably mineral formations being made by percolation of soda-water through rocks (place a CO2 glacier on top of an H2O glacier and you'll get things dissolving into each other near the bottom where the pressures get up there). To the xenobiologists, it means that they've got a place to look for life. To the planetary scientists, they've got something against which to test their models of atmospheric/hydrospheric formation and evolution. To the Mars Society [marssociety.org], it's a guarantee of the raw materials for rocket fuel, agriculture and an eventual technological society on the Red Planet.

    • Re:What's the signifigance.... (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      This water would be much more available for fuel-generation and for water and air for crews. It was though that they'd have to drill down a kilometer, or land at the poles. Three feet is much more do-able.

      When mapping orbit is achieved, they'll be able to look much more closely at lower latitudes.
    • The significance is that it would greatly simplify sending a manned mission to mars if there was water a large amount of water on the surface. It reduces the weight of the provisions that must be sent along and since it could also be converted to rocket fuel for the return trip.
    • Huge significance. All the talk of global warmings and temperature snaps means humans are more likely to start heading towards space soon. In any eventuality, we're going to head out to the rest of the Universe soon (next 100 to 200 years at the latest) and need to find viable new homes.
      Having Mars available will give us a boost in terms of learning how to teraform and how to populate new planets. It's also an untouched resource in terms of natural resources and learning experiences.
      I for one want us to last for a very long time and being stuck one planet is not the way to do it. Thus populating mars is the next logical step.
      Of course (now the rant portion is over), we need water. Water would allow us to irrigate and grow the food that is native to us. Everything on our planet needs water to survive (as in everything we need) and it makes sense that we would live on a planet with water.
      • It's all a nice idea but there still remain so many barriers to colonization. I would say next 100 to 200 years is actually a low estimate. Creating an environment on another planet to mimic Earth-like conditions is quite a task. It's not just the ability to survive, but having a chance to actually have a life :-). Until we have Star Trek-like "replicators" and ways to produce food there. I mean, space shuttles are great and all, but travel is just the start of it.

        Plus, I mean, social life on Mars is gonna be tough. It's all fine and dandy from a scientific study perspective, but from a *human life* perspective it really sucks, because Mars wasn't meant for us, we would have to adapt it to our Earthly lifestyle. If Mars WAS meant for us, it would have evolved much differently.
        • but that's the point...it isn't meant for us. We can pretty much say that the whole Universe isn't meant for us. Even most of Earth isn't meant for us. Once the people with the money realize that we have to move then we're going to go. Even if we have to live in tin cans in space, we will. Eventually though, over thousands and thousands of years, we could make mars habitable. Then hopefully we'll start getting into the Foundation series.

  • Cadillac Desert on Mars? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) on Friday December 14, 2001 @06:20PM (#2706003) Homepage Journal
    Reading Cadillac Desert, which delves into the water history of the west. Interesting stuff about L.A. thieving the water from the Owens River. I'm sure it'll get even more interesting as I get to how L.A. is sucking much of the water out of the entire southwest and how battles are simmering to revoke L.A.'s water rights, starting with Mono Lake a couple years ago.

    So, there's water on Mars. Probably not a ton of it, considering the gravity. Maybe enough, with the right structure (like a biosphere) to sustain a limited amount of life. Roll forward to a point where living on Mars isn't just a scientific undertaking but part of enterprise (like settling the western US was from the 1880's onward) and think about how valuable water will be and how carefully it'll need to be overseen.

    As for whether there's life or not, big deal, we'll wipe it out in some clumsy way or it'll prove to be so toxic to humans or human agriculture that we'll leave it a derelict desert like much of the southwest. Entertaining thinking, anyway.

  • there could be life on there sometime? Obviously not the same life that thrives on Earth, but who knows how advanced genetic engineering technologies could be in a few decades? The next question, of course, would be 'why?'.
    • Yes. The microfossils on that mars meteorite they found a couple of years ago have been more or less proven to be truly life. The microfossils of the bacteria had many complex organic chemicals in which the rock surrounding them did not. Also, they really look like bacteria.

  • Colonization isn't as far away as it seems (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Tattva ( 53901 ) on Friday December 14, 2001 @06:24PM (#2706023) Homepage Journal
    With this information, we have all the technology we need to permanently colonize mars at a reasonable price. Take the south pole science stations: self-contained, self heated, comfortable places to live where the only outside resources they utilized were gravity, air, and snow. Mars has all 3, but the air would need a little more work. With hydroponics, solar panels and limited chemical lab and machine shop capabilities, a self-sustaining colony is quite reasonable. Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes are incredibly efficient enclosures, and could probably be constructed with polymers created from materials readily available in the ground.

    The only thing I am not sure about is iron, copper, and other metals deposits. Polymers replace the need for these in many cases, but not all. Anyone know the mineral layout of Mars? I imagine it is like every unmined region on the Earth, incredibly rich in easily-retrievable resources. Just think of Austria's Tallar gold mines (the largest gold strike in history and the origin of the word "dollar.") or South America's Potassi silver mines (the largest silver strike.)

    The only question is whether colonizing Mars is something humanity wants to do. The return on investment on Earth in economic terms would probably be close to nil due to the cost of transport. On the other hand, making sure all our eggs aren't in one basket sounds like a reasonable self-preservation strategy.

    • >The only thing I am not sure about is iron, copper, and other metals deposits

      I am not an planatary geologist, but it would seem that Mars has a lot of Iron. It's not rust-colored for nothing! :-)

      The book _Red Mars_ assumes that the colonists can use local iron and magnesium for construction materials and that many materials can be chemically fabricated.

    • Economic use doesn't need a colony (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Spamalamadingdong ( 323207 ) on Friday December 14, 2001 @06:33PM (#2706068) Homepage Journal
      The return on investment on Earth in economic terms would probably be close to nil due to the cost of transport.
      Yeah, down on Earth surface you're right. But suppose you need large amounts of stuff in orbit, or on the Moon? Mars' smaller gravity well might actually make it cheaper to ship water and such from there than to haul it up from the ground on ol' Terra; if I recall correctly Olympus Mons is effectively outside the Martian atmosphere, so you could build a mass-driver on the slope and launch almost directly to orbit from there without so much as an Estes motor (you'd need some kind of apogee kick or it would fall back). Tossing stuff electrically vs. using rockets might be cheap enough to make it worth going to Mars to get the stuff to toss in the first place.
      • Pavonis Mons would be better than Olympus Mons.

        The caldera of Pavonis is right on the equator, so you can get maximum benefit from the rotation of Mars. Which is why people on Earth like to put their launch pads as close to the equator as possible. It requires less energy.

        The top of Pavonis Mons is almost as high as Olympus Mons, so you would not need to go through the Martian atmosphere at that point either.

    • South pole stations (Score:5, Insightful)

      by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Friday December 14, 2001 @06:50PM (#2706158) Homepage Journal
      Actually, those stations get a hell of a lot more than just "air, snow, gravity" - they get massive shipments of fuel oil, food, construction materials, electronic supplies, medical supplies, you name it.

      They manufacture almost NONE of their needs.

      Now, were we to build a south pole station that actually DID use only water, air, and gravity, and created everything else they needed from materials found at the south pole and processed there, that would be something.
      • What if we just colonized with robots first, until we figured out how to make air and food there? Ok, that's too simplistic, but you get the general idea.

      • Dr. Robert Zurbin, lockheed martin engineer and NASA affiliate, has actually designed a mars mission (for NASA through lockheed martin) that will only cost about US$10B and does only use (martian) air, gravity, and a small nuclear reactor.

        As for pole stations that DO use only resources "naturally" available, he has established one and another is in the works.
        http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-base-01h.html [spacedaily.com]
        Basically, the idea is to send an unmanned rocket to mars (no larger than conventional rockets used in large sattelite launches) with lots of hydrogen and a small nuclear reactor. The hydrogen can be combined with things in the martian atmosphere to produce methane, oxygen and water. The reaction has carbon monoxide leftover, which is vented to the atmosphere. After the unmanned rocket with the H2 completes, a manned rocket is sent to mars. The first rocket will have generated all the fuel to return home (something like 800 tons of methane from 40 tons of H2), water and oxygen for the arriving astronaughts.

        There is also a discovery program about this. He has had good success using this method elsewhere.. and a full scale, self-contained simulation started this month. A plug for his book about this and some useful text on the subject can be found at http://www.nw.net/mars/ [nw.net]


        Wendell

    • Mars is the future. Humankind will be populating Mars in a couple of years. Don't let the opportunity pass through. We have a list of prime real estates for sale on Mars.

      For more information, please contact

      Mars Development Corporation
      representative: CowboyNeal

    • Mars is about 18% Iron (II) Oxide and 30% Magnesium (II) oxide, by weight.

    • You need lots of volcanic activity to generate metal ore and deposits. Mars ran out of volcanic activity a really, really long time ago.

      The Thermal Emission Spectrometer aboard Mars Surveyor has found nothing to indicate that there are significant metal deposits on the surface of Mars. Doesn't mean they aren't there, they just aren't exposed at the surface.
    • Tired and wrong. Even the most inhospitable spot on Earth would be easier and more economical to colonize than mars. At least it occurs to some people that "humans" and "Mars" don't go well together, and in typical knee-jerk fashion, the solution is "so change Mars". Again, it would be far easier to "mars-form" people than to terraform Mars.

  • Interesting.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Fenris2001 ( 210117 ) <fenris@nmt. e d u> on Friday December 14, 2001 @06:25PM (#2706024)
    The article states that the evidence of hydrogen was found in the soil near the polar caps - not unexpected, but nonetheless interesting.

    There is overwhelming evidence that water flowed on Mars in the geologically recent past. The main question for those studying Mars is, Where did that water go?

    We've known since the Mariner probes that there is a large reserve of water in the ice caps at either pole, but this reserve is not large enough to account for all of the erosion features of Mars. If, as has been suggested recently, there was once a giant ocean covering the northern hemisphere of Mars, then there is a LOT of water missing from Mars.

    If, as has been suggested, there is a significant amount of water adsorbed into the soil of Mars, and as these results seem to indicate, this could account for the missing water.

    Other theories suggest that the absence of a Martian magnetosphere may explain the lack of water on Mars - without a shield from a planetary magnetic field, the solar wind would dissociate large amounts of water vapor in the atmosphere - raising the amount of free oxygen. The hydrogen would be lost into space, especially on a planet as small as Mars.

    Why is this important? Because some of the smae processes are going on here on Earth - water is lost through photo-ionization and conversion to crustal rocks. The amount of water vapor in our atmosphere is a very important factor in global warming and weather patterns. So, by studying another planet, we can learn about our own. Very neat stuff.

    • Finding water (or ice) on Mars is fascinating, but people that think this means we can turn it into a vacation resort are not being realistic.

      As you point out, Mars does not have enough mass or magnetic shielding to preserve an atmosphere. Creating one by melting the ice caps would be a waste.

      Then again, glass dome anyone?

      • Re:Waiting to exhale... a waste? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Fenris2001 ( 210117 ) <fenris@nmt. e d u> on Friday December 14, 2001 @07:16PM (#2706257)
        Well, not necessarily.

        By melting the ice caps and driving water out of the soil, it would be possible to create a shirt-sleeve environment for humans and many other terrestrial species. I won't go into specifics, but I'm sure most /. readers are familiar with the concept: big orbiting mirrors focused on the ice caps, black dust spread on the ground to raise the temperature, artificial greenhouse gases, etc.

        The point of all this effort would not be to create a stable system - that is probably impossible, due to the weak gravity and solar radiation environment. However, for a few tens of thousands of years, Mars would be habitable by almost every species on Earth.

        I agree that the reality of making Mars habitable is not like the fantasies of most Mars Society members (I'm not one, though I link to them in my .sig). We can't turn Mars into another Eden, but we don't have to in order to learn a great many things & create a biological reservoir in case a truly astronomical disaster befalls our current ecosystem.

        Mars is valuable in the minds of many for the opportunity it offers - truly global projects can be done that would be impossible on Earth for reasons of safety. Some of these are silly (melting the ice caps with thermonuclear weapons), others serious (building giant cables that stretch from orbit to the surface). The problem comes when, for whatever reasons, the delusions of some people crash headlong into reality.

        Percival Lowell thought he saw a network of canals built by a Martian civilization, and Burroughs wrote books chronicling the end of that noble race. Neither the canals or the civilization existed.

        If we approach the unknown with an open mind and a sense of wonder, then we learn much more about the way things really are. If we keep pinning our hopes and dreams on phantoms, we will forever be disappointed.

        What the heck. It's only Karma.
        • Just having lots of natural water available on the planet is good enough to help out some form of colonization, even if we don't go for a large scale project like you're discussing.
          It also might be possible to do something midway between what you're talking about and domes, setting up moderately controlled walled up environments on Mars without worrying about making the whole planet livable.

          But I do like your idea as using Mars as a testing ground for potentially dangerous concepts. How about Buckminster Fuller's mile radius spherical floating (but tethered) city? I've always wanted to see that proof of concept idea attempted.
        • Actually, there is a chance to create a stable life-friendly environment on Mars. Think of what made theEarth the way we know it today: what changed the Earth was the evolutionary appearence of plants. Plants have dramatically decreased the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, decreasing the temperature in the process.

          That made the Earth habitable for most multicellular organisms that we know today (existing and extinct). The only problem with the appearance of plants on the Earth is.. that it's a damn shame it didn't happen ealrier! The only form of life on our planet, for about 3 billion years, was unicellular, not very efficient in photosinthesis(sp?). As soon as plants appeared, other much more complex beings appeared, thanks to a much better climate.

          Basically, plants have stabilized the temperature of the Earth on a lower level. I believe that they could do a similar thing on Mars, but on a higher level. If we create an artificial greenhouse effect and we produce a lot of plants that would survive such conditions, these plants could act as a stabilizing mechanism and keep the temperature in some more acceptable margins.

          Consider the other advantages: Mars would look a hell of a lot better.
          • Not to nitpick, but....

            The problem isn't temperature, per se. I'm presenting my argument based on a mass balance. If we assume that all the hydrogen on Mars is bound in water, then we can get a feel for how much water vapor would be in the atmosphere at any point. In the upper atmosphere, solar protons and gamma rays ionize water vapor into H2 and O2. The hydrogen is so light it is lost into space, while the oxygen remains. This mechanism accounts for the high relative abundance of deuterium on Mars, as well as the highly oxidized state of the surface.

            So, even if the temperature of Mars was stabilized in the liquid water range, hydrogen would continue to be lost and oxygen accumulated in the atmosphere. On Earth, volcanic activity serves to replenish the hydrogen lost through photo ionization, and plate tectonics recycle the oxidized crust into the mantle. Mars has no tectonic movement or volcanism anymore. Heating the planet to allow liquid water to form would actually accelerate the loss of hydrogen from the planet.

            What this means for colonization/terraforming efforts is that no equilibrium can be reached between hydrogen loss and replenishment. If the rate of ice cap melting and release of water from permafrost were very carefully controlled, it would be possible for human-habitable conditions to prevail for perhaps as long as ten thousand years.

            Ultimately, the Earth and Mars share the same fate: to become dry, cold desert planets that will be burned to cinders in a few billion years. Hopefully, by then the human race will have established itself across the galaxy.

            • Good points. Now, if you allow me to be a bit nitpicking, if you ionize water, you don't get H2 and O2, but O-- and H+.

              Back to serious mode: do you not think that with oxigene in the atmosphere, we could actually have a layer of ozone, which would reduce the effect of ionizing radiation? After all, that's what's happening here at home, it's not just the hydrogene is replenished, the ionization is smaller, too.

              Just an idea, what do you think?
      • I'm not sure why no-one else has pointed this out, but if you're really intrested in this subject read Red Mars/Green Mars/Blue mars (I may have those last two reversed), by Kim Stanley Robinson. Not only does he go into many technical ideas relating to terraforming mars, but also explores the political angles of those who would want to completey alter mars (like many here) and those who would want to leave Mars as-is for quite a long time.

        Myself, I'm not sure I want Mars used as a giant ground of experimentation for dangerous concepts, but it is defianetly a lot safer...
    • You may not only find alot of water under the surface but you may find life under the surface as well.

      I cant believe no one here has even considered that for a moment.

    • Re:Interesting.... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Cally ( 10873 )

      Other theories suggest that the absence of a Martian magnetosphere may explain the lack of water on Mars - without a shield from a planetary magnetic field, the solar wind would dissociate large amounts of water vapor in the atmosphere - raising the amount of free oxygen. The hydrogen would be lost into space, especially on a planet as small as Mars.


      Aha! Yes! But! :)


      Mars Observer has found, firstly, evidence that a substantial (possibly planetary-scale) magnet field existed in geological time - in the form of fossilised magnetic fields, interestingly in stripes of alternating polarity, like on earth either side of crustal spreading zones such as the mid-Atlantic ridge, which implies a tectonic conveyor built was going for a while early in Martian history;

      and secondly, regional mini-magnetospheres, big enough to have effects on the density of the atmosphere and (IIRC) weather patterns. (Haven't got an URL to hand, but it would have been somewhere on the JPL Global Surveyor site [nasa.gov].

      It'll be interesting to see what the regional distribution of this hydrogen looks like, once higher resolution data comes out. Er, in.

  • Dan Quayle Knew All Along! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Serk ( 17156 ) on Friday December 14, 2001 @06:27PM (#2706035) Homepage
    Mars is essentially in the same orbit... Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe.
    -- Vice President Dan Quayle, 8/11/89 (reported in Esquire, 8/92)

  • Life? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Friday December 14, 2001 @06:27PM (#2706041)
    It seems to me that if we are going to find signs of life anywhere on Mars it would be in the ice caps. Spores have been known to survive thousands of years on earth, perhaps we could find some form of microbe still frozen in the ice that could even survive if thawed. It may even be possible for these life form to still thrive (Volcanic activity creating liquid water beneath the caps?). I believe Nasa should make it a priority to have their next surveyor gather samples of the ice for analysis.

    • Re:Life? (Score:2, Funny)

      by Hektor_Troy ( 262592 )
      Have you never seen The Thing (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0084787) with Kurt Russel??? Thawing ANYTHING you find on Mars is the LAST thing you want to do!!!

  • Recalibrate (Score:4, Funny)

    by rbgaynor ( 537968 ) on Friday December 14, 2001 @06:38PM (#2706081)
    If I could only figure out how to recalibrate my neutron spectrometer so it would detect beer (free) instead of water...

  • Wise Guy, eh? (Score:3, Funny)

    by martyb ( 196687 ) on Friday December 14, 2001 @06:39PM (#2706092)

    From the referenced article:

    Reporting MO's preliminary observations, scientists said the first pass by the probe's neutron spectrometer had revealed evidence of the element in soil at high latitudes.

    Maybe we should not jump to a conclusion before we hear from Larry and Curly, too? ;^)

    (Posting this as the theme from the "Three Stooges" runs through my mind.)

  • "the Mars Odyssey spacecraft has detected large deposits of hydrogen at high latitudes using its neutron spectrometer. This may indicate significant water ice on the surface of Mars!"

    Can this spectrometer also detect oxygen ? because it seems to me that if it detects large deposits of oxygen at exactly the same place as the large deposits of hydrogens, about, say, half the amount of hydrogen detected, then there is a really good chance that the deposits of hydrogens are water, and not some silly hydrate that wouldn't be usable by a Martian colony.

    And water isn't all a Martian colony needs : if oxygen is found, there will be at least the raw material to give a Martian colony a chance of breathing something usable, so the rocket that propels them there doesn't have to carry tons and tons of the stuffs from Earth.

    • Oxygen doesn't mean spit (Score:5, Informative)

      by Spamalamadingdong ( 323207 ) on Friday December 14, 2001 @06:53PM (#2706167) Homepage Journal
      Better than 2/3 of the mass of CO2 (dry ice) is oxygen, and there's plenty of that at the poles. A large fraction of the mass of rock is silicon dioxide, which is full of (would you ever have guessed it?)... oxygen. An oxygen detector will find it everywhere on any rocky object.

      The stuff that's hard to find in accessible form off of Earth isn't oxygen, it's hydrogen. Once you've got the hydrogen it's not difficult to turn it into whatever other form you need. On a planet-like body the most likely form in which you'll find hydrogen is going to be water, though you might find traces of ammonia if it's cold enough.

      The other thing about water is that it dissolves things and leaves other things. Movement of water tends to create useful ores, placer deposits of insoluble stuff like gold, and other things you could get an earful about by asking a mining engineer or geologist. Knowing where water is tells you where to look for those things.

      • Oxygen *atoms* (Score:4, Interesting)

        by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Friday December 14, 2001 @11:22PM (#2707031) Homepage Journal
        Your argument is sound, but needs to be expressed more carefully. Oxygen in the form of oxidized compounds is, as you point out, very common. But when you say "Oxygen" people assume you're talking about "common" O2.

        We take this substance for granted because we happen to live on a planet that has a lot of it. But it's actually pretty rare -- O2 combines with other stuff very easily, and disappears. Luckily for us, there are all these green life forms that constantly pump it out as metabolic waste.

        So if we spot lots of free O2 (or any other unstable substance), you have to assume something interesting is going on.

        I'm a little suprised to hear that hydrogren is rare. Don't hydrogen atoms make up something like 90% of the universe? But perhaps you mean it's rare on rocky planets.

        • Molecular hydrogen is rare on small planets close to the Sun, not necessarily rocky ones. Hydrogen is so light that the slightest application of heat blows it off into space. Nothing this side of Jupiter is big enough to hold onto Hydrogen in its molecular form. Though you probably know that I was just being anal about it :)

          • Anal? (Score:2)

            by fm6 ( 162816 )
            Hey, I'm the last person to point fingers at nit-picking anality. I've made a career out of this character flaw!

            I did know about inner planets and hydrogen, but only because of another /. post. It's obscure stuff like this that keeps me coming back.

  • Colonization, oops (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cornjones ( 33009 ) on Friday December 14, 2001 @06:42PM (#2706118) Homepage
    Significant water-ice deposits easily accessible from the surface would make it much more likely that life existed at some stage on Mars.

    Damn keyboard shortcuts!... sorry about the double post.

    Aren't we more interested in finding water to give us a more reasonable hope of colonizing Mars? once we get a few thousand people on Mars they can look for signs of previous life but lets get a backup of the human race over there first.

    That is why we are interested in water on mars. we want to drink it.

    ej
  • before rich snobs get to pay $10K/bottle for pure Martian Spring water. I can see it now... "So pure, the source has been untouched for Billions of years!"
  • ...just prove that there is hydrogen near the poles... doesn't have to be water...
  • How exactly do you get from "hydrogen detection" to "water"? Given that this stuff is at the poles, isn't it at least equally possible that it's CH4 slurry?
    • Yeah but this is slashdot. When has anything been reported only after all the facts had been collected. It's a good thing slashdot doesn't have a space agency. There'd already be a team sent up in a rocket headed for Mars. It'd suck for them to find that all they had to drink was methane ice.

      "Geek Control, this is Torvalds 1, we tried heating the ice to get water but it caught on fire. Please advise. Torvalds 1 out."

  • CO2 on Mars is more important the H2O (Score:3, Interesting)

    by spike hay ( 534165 ) <`ku.em.etaloiv' `ta' `eci_ulb'> on Friday December 14, 2001 @11:07PM (#2706982) Homepage
    It has been known for a long time that there is water near the surface. That Mars meteorite with the microfossils more or less proves that mars at least had life at some point.
    I think the most important thing on mars is CO2, not H2O, however. A huge amount of dry ice is locked in Mar's polar ice caps and underneath its crust. If mars could somehow be warmed enough to gasify just some of this dry ice, it would create a runaway greenhouse effect and warm Mars enough for liquid water and plant life. The plants would in turn produce oxygen, which we can breath.
    The hard part is kicking of the runaway greenhouse effect by melting the dry ice. This could be practically accomplished by one of 2 ways:
    1. You could build a large gossamer mirror near mars to reflect more sunlight onto it, warming Mars up. This isn't as hard as it sounds, for very advanced humans. The mirror would *only* weigh a few thousand tons.
    2. Or, you could put CFC-generating self-replicating machines (like nanobots) on its surface that which can also warm the Mars though the greenhouse effect.

    • It has been known for a long time that there is water near the surface. That Mars meteorite with the microfossils more or less proves that mars at least had life at some point.

      No, the Martian meteorite had these microstructures because they were formed by crystals. Actually, the debate is still raging, and IIRC, the ``pro-lifers'' are losing.

    • Or, you could put CFC-generating self-replicating machines (like nanobots) on its surface that which can also warm the Mars though the greenhouse effect.

      Yes, the self-replicating machines are called plants or bacteria...
    • The problem with this approach is that at partial pressures of CO2 greater than 15 mbar or so (current Martial atmosphere ~7 mbar CO2, varies tremendously with altitude) it becomes toxic to mammals.

      Higher pressures of CO2 force carbon dioxide backwards through the lungs and into the bloodstream, making the blood more acidic and resulting in a general degradation of most biological functions. The feeling is exactly like the out-of-breath feeling you have after a fast sprint, except that in a high-CO2 environment, you can't recover from it.

      Basically, such an atmosphere might be warm, but you still couldn't breathe it.

  • Crash europa into mars. Instant earth. Water, mass and atmoshere. Give the conglomerate 300 years to cool off and begin colonization. wash, rinse, repeat.
  • The more I hear about the discovery of water, over and over and over and over again I'll reason thusly:

    If the gov't can repeat that there are no UFOs when 1000s claim there are, why can't the UFO watchers claim there's no water on Mars?

    It would push FOX' ratings up a la "No Real Moon Landing?"

    I'm really getting tired of the same discovery over and over again. Anymore and I'll start to doubt whether Mars really exists.
  • A neutron spectrometer is a new one to me.

    How does it work? Has anyone here worked with one before?

    • Re:NEUTRON Spectrometer? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      This is basically the same spectrometer (part of the Gamma Ray Spectrometer experiment) that was on the Lunar Prospector. A description of how the spectrometer works [lanl.gov] can be found at Los Alamos National Labs.

      The neutron spectrometer doesn't have a very high energy resolution, but it can tell the difference between high energy and thermal/near thermal neutrons. By thermal neutrons, I mean that they have a kinetic energy of about 1/40 of an electron Volt per neutron. This is the same kinetic energy as a gas phase molecule at room temperature.

      The detector has two components, a plastic (hydrogen rich) scintillator doped with the Boron-10 isotope, and a gamma ray detector. The Boron dopant has a large neutron capture cross section at thermal energies. When the Boron captures a thermal neutron, it decays via alpha emission to become Lithium-7. The excited Lithium nucleus then emits a gamma ray which is detected by a separate gamma detector. (Plastics are less efficient at detecting gamma rays than, say, semiconductor based dectectors because they have a lower number density of electrons. You detect gamma rays via electron/photon collisions. Hence, the more electrons per cubic centimeter, the more likely you are to observe a collision.)

      Now if a high energy neutron enters the plastic scintillator, it rattles around briefly, colliding with the hydrogen in the plastic, until is slows down enough to be captured by a Boron nucleus. These collisions produce a broad photon pulse with a long tail in the plastic. A couple of microseconds later, the neutron is absorbed by Boron and produces an alpha particle and a gamma ray. (The alpha particle also produces a scintillation in the plastic.)

      If a low energy neutron enters the detector, then it is captured by a Boron-10 nucleus almost immediately.

      So you can distinguish the two types of neutrons by looking for the delay between the scintillations in the plastic detector and the gamma ray detector. If they occur simultaneously, then you saw a thermal neutron. If there is a significant time delay, then you saw a high energy neutron.

      It's been a few years since I've worked with this sort of thing, but I believe I have the fundamentals basically correct.

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