Vast Subsurface Martian Ice Discovered

The Fun Guy writes to tell us New Scientist is reporting that deep-scan radar results from ESA's Mars Express spacecraft have revealed vast amounts of subsurface ice. From the article: "Intriguingly, the signal reflected from the bottom of the crater is so strong and appears so flat that it may be liquid water. 'If you put water there, that's what the signal might look like,' Johnson told New Scientist. But he cautions the data is based on only one pass over the region and could be caused by another material."

oblig ERB

[opencity]

also found was John Carter, slightly the worse for wear.

Re:oblig ERB

[bhima]

do you really expect folks to get that?

Re:oblig ERB

[technothrasher]

I certainly didn't get it. But my question is, could we use Professor Perry's drill to tap into that water?

Re:Anyone get this?

[technothrasher]

"Open your mind, Quaid!!! Start the reactor!!!"

Dang, that sounds so familiar... I'm afraid I know it, but I just don't seem to have complete recall.

Terraforming

[richcoder]

To anyone in the know, what implications would this have on the possible terraforming of mars to have a hospitable atmosphere?

Re:Terraforming

[Anonymous Coward]

The implications are that there will likely be further implications

Re:Terraforming

[MightyMartian]

I really can't imagine how the terraforming idea is going to be tenable over the long term. Even if you can figure out a way to bulk-up the atmosphere to raise surface temperatures sufficiently for water to exist in a liquid state, the gravity of Mars is to weak to sustain such an atmosphere, which will leak off over time. You would essentially have to keep adding to the atmosphere.

Re:Terraforming

[KiloByte]

the gravity of Mars is to weak to sustain such an atmosphere, which will leak off over time

Yeah, it will leak of over the time, it will take only several million years for it to leak! Of course, no one stops us from terraforming it again by then.

Re:Terraforming

[FridayBob]

Also, since Mars has no magnetic field to speak of, any bulked-up the atmosphere would be lost even faster. Forget terraforming. We might some day figure out how to live there, but it'll never look like home. Then again, home is what you make it, right?

Re:Terraforming

[vertinox]

Also, since Mars has no magnetic field to speak of,

Well if you built a rather large fusion reactor in the center of mars and then set it to spin like ours then gave it a spin then you might be able to do it... ...but if we had that much technology we'd probaly wouldn't have standard human bodies anymore and therefor not need a real atmosphere to walk around.

Re:Terraforming

[ultranova]

Actually, I think it would be a lot harder to terraform a planet or engineer anything on that scale than it would to genetically adapt the bodies of a number of colonists to a new and very different world.

Considering the amount of cruelty in human history that has been justified by just about any difference in the victim compared to the perpetrator, I think that splitting human species into several subspecies, adapted to their environment, is a really, really, really bad idea. Especially since the diffe

Re:Terraforming

[njchick]

Put a superconductive wire along the equator and run some current through it. Better yet, make it a mesh, so that breaking a wire doesn't release huge amounts of energy at once.

Re:Terraforming

[jafac]

but the point where the atmosphere is lost again is so far in the future as to be meaningless.

Here we go again.

I can see Mars, in the future - the environmentalists will be warning everyone of the danger of atmospheric depletion and the need to invest in replenishment, and the conservatives will claim it's hogwash and that paying for replenishment would be a drain on the economy and cost jobs. . .

UNTIL THEY ALL CHOKE AND DIE!

Re:Terraforming

[gobbo]

You would essentially have to keep adding to the atmosphere

By the time we get around to actually committing to something like terraforming Mars, it will be pretty trivial to slap some ion drives on them thar big chunks of ice spinning around Saturn, and drop them down the well into a shallow entry so that they vapourize. Lots of potential atmosphere out there in space, it just needs to be moved to Mars, and given time, it wouldn't be too expensive. Great sky show on those nights for the martian colonists,

No Need to Look Ahead

[Shihar]

Some plans believe that they could make a marginal atmosphere (cold, low oxygen, but breathable) within a hundred years or so. Sure, the atmosphere might float off, but that takes hundreds and thousands of years. I would say it is a pretty safe bet that barring the collapse of civilization, we can probably replace whatever is lost. Sure, it might mean that there is always equipment running on mars to keep the atmosphere from floating off, but that seems like I small price to play to gain control over an

Re:No Need to Look Ahead

[Ryan Amos]

Have you ever known any piece of technology to work for 25 years, let alone 10,000? Yeah, that's what I thought.

Re:Terraforming

[Cyno]

By the time all the hydrogen and oxygen on Mars leak out its atmosphere we would have solved global warming on Earth, cold fusion and how to make Duke Nukem Forever run on Linux.

Re:Terraforming

[MightyMartian]

That's a rather absurd analogy, to say the least. Cars are essentially disposable, whereas when you terraform, the essential reasoning behind it is to make an Earth-like world. If such a world is going to require constant maintenance, then it becomes a long-term expensive proposition. The nice thing about Earth is that it's essentially a self-regulating system.

Re:Terraforming

[Draveed]

Just because a terraformed Mars may require maintainance, doesn't mean it's not worth it. After all, it's providing a new place to fit billions more people. We need to know how expensive is that maintainance going to be and how much effort will be needed? I have no idea what the answers are unfortunately, but later generations might and then decide it is worth the trouble.

Re:Terraforming

[jafac]

After all, it's providing a new place to fit billions more people.

You mean billions of poor people.

Little if any

[everphilski]

To terraform you need to make an atmosphere. You need greenhouse gasses to do this. Water generally doesn't factor into the equation. A good reference is "The case for Mars" by Robert Zubrin (although I don't totally agree with him)

-everphilski-

Re:Little if any

[terrymr]

Water vapor is one of the most efficient greenhouse gasses.

True Dat

[everphilski]

But you'd need to heat up the surface first. Which requires a *lot* of greenhouse gasses first, to trap the heat. You can't just boil a big pot of water, it will just condense on the surface.

-everphilski-

Re:Little if any

[AJWM]

Actually, water vapor is a greenhouse gas.

Since when is water vapor not a greenhouse gas?

[Shivetya]

I have always been under the impression that it is a greenhouse gas, probably one of the most popular ones at that.

I would go find some good sources but will settle for Wiki...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas [wikipedia.org]

On the right track

[everphilski]

Its too thin. That's the problem, trying to make the atmosphere thicker. You basically have to import gasses one way or another. Gasses are bulky though, there are better ways to do it, like plants, biomass, etc. that can break down matter from a solid state into gas. Martian rock is actually rather rusty and carbonaceous (sp?) if you had a good cheap source of heat you could heat it up and get some carbon dioxide and oxygen off of it... its not an easy problem to tackle. Other methods that have been suggested have been bombarding the surface with asteroids from the asteroid belt (many of them have a lot of solid gasses on them) or detonating nuclear bombs (bad idea IMO).

-everphilski-

Re:Terraforming

[drinkypoo]

Depends on if we can send the governator to mars to reactivate the alien machines...

Re:Terraforming

[Ancient_Hacker]

Emmm, we can't even terraform Earth to mitigate global warming, how likely we'll be able to do a much bigger job on MArs, without say the convenience of energy, air, equipment, labor, or the urge to do so?

Re:Terraforming

[Draveed]

It does help that we have a much easier time putting greenhouse gases into an atmosphere (what we need to do on Mars) rather than remove them from an atmosphere, or at least change our technology enough so that we stop releasing any more.

Re:Terraforming

[nappingcracker]

Ice makes terraforming quite easy.

• 1. Get your ass to mars
• 2. Enlist help of little people, mutants, and three breasted women
• 3. Take Johnnycab to local Martian artifact/ruins
• 4. Locate martian touchpad
• 5. insert "spock-live-long-and-prosper" hand to lower alien reactor rods into ice
• 6. Immediately play outside without EV suit, the planet will be completely pressurized and habitable before your head explodes.

Cohagen, give those people air!

Re:a big f**king drill

[Somegeek]

"The implications is that to release the water you need to drill down 1.5km or possibly 2.5 to get to the liquid. Doing that on another planet would probably cost more than another iraq war.
With no oil at the end."

Water on Mars will be worth more than the oil in Iraq.

another material?!

[G3ckoG33k]

"and could be caused by another material"

WTF?! Sending an expedition to Mars, to find water (supposedly with the correct equipment to do so), and then come up with that, erm, statement. As an armchair astronomer, I find that a bit weak.

radar vs. spectrometer

[everphilski]

They shoulda used a spectrometer and not radar :)

(resists urge to take a pot shot at ESA)

-everphilski-

Be a man and don't post as an AC

[everphilski]

Arschloch

The problem with radar alone is they will never know for sure. And looking that deep, the water is virtually useless for anything but an advanced permenant settlement. Have you seen the rigs it takes to drill for oil that deep? Not to mention we don't even know if its water or a solidified magma flow.

-everphilski-

Re:another material?!

[Bamfarooni]

If you've got a good way for detecting, from orbit, the mineral composition of something 1.5 km beneath the surface, I'm sure there's a lot of NASA scientists that would like to hear about it.

Otherwise, break out another beer, get back in your armchair, and quit dropping the remote control.

Re:another material?!

[rrkap]

If you've got a good way for detecting, from orbit, the mineral composition of something 1.5 km beneath the surface, I'm sure there's a lot of NASA scientists that would like to hear about it.

Forget NASA, there's alot of oil companies who would like to hear about that

Re:another material?!

[Richard_at_work]

This was the first pass over the region, and the data that is causing this news is from that single pass. Its probable that the other instruments were doing something else at the time, and the radar was being used to map the region. Since the data isnt coming back in real time, the only thing you can do is plan a second pass when the orbit allows it, this time with the instruments focused on the area of interest.

Most Puzzling Clue

[Waffle Iron]

More detailed analysis of the radar image indicates that the shape of the flat region actually appears to be almost perfectly rectangular, with an aspect ratio of 4:9. Nobody is quite sure what to make of that.

Wong Family Tennis Court

[everphilski]

~Futurama~

-everphilski-

Definately A Big Deal

[PlayfullyClever]

This is a big deal. You don't find raw metal much on Mars; most of it is tied up with oxygen. Raw metal has many implications: if it is common, it can be a great source of base building. If the metals are rare on Earth as well, and they're common on Mars, they could provide a potential export source. If it is a meteor, and they're common, it could affect our models of how often Mars gets struck by meteors. Since the rock isn't buried, it could provide clues as to how long it's been on Mars, how fast Meridiani Planum is eroding, and give us dataon how metals wear over time on Mars.

Any time you find something you've never found before, it's a big deal. Honestly, to people who've been following the mission, it looked like Opportunity was pretty much wrapping things up. It just left a geological treasure trove and there isn't much more "on the map", so to speak. It's neat to see it continue making nice finds.

Time loop?

[voice_of_all_reason]

Quaaaaaaaaid... Start the... reeeaaaaccctoooorrr....

Re:Time loop?

[mozumder]

Freee maaars!

See you at the Party!

headline creep

[mcguyver]

Actual Scientist - If you put water there, that's what the signal might look like.
newscientist.com - Radar reveals ice deep below Martian surface
Slashdot.com - Vast Subsurface Martian Ice Discovered

The headlines gets better and better!

Re:headline creep

[Reality Master 101]

NASA.com - NASA Scientists Say Martian Water "Could" Mean Life, Asks for More Funding

NASA = ESA?

[oni]

Every time NASA feels it's missing from the public eye, and needs to beg for more money, they amazingly find water on mars.

So, you think that the ESA is part of NASA? From this we know that we can disregard everything that you say.

(thanks for playing)

Re:NASA = ESA?

[yellena]

I've always disregarded everything that Anonymous Coward guy says. He is always talking crazy.

not really

[penguin-collective]

The way I read it was that it is pretty clear that there is lots of ice. The thing that is speculative is the presence of a liquid layer.

Slashdot User:

[Burning1]

If there is water, there might be life!

Actual Scientist - If you put water there, that's what the signal might look like.
newscientist.com - Radar reveals ice deep below Martian surface
Slashdot.com - Vast Subsurface Martian Ice Discovered
Slashdot User: "Life descovered on Mars!"

Re:headline creep

[ModernGeek]

I think you mean slashdot.org thank you very much

Re:headline creep

[truckaxle]

One more just make it complete...

Slashdot.org (unimaginative troll) - I for one welcome our new aquatic martian overlords.

ICE-9

[Helmholtz]

The surface of Mars is quite obviously a redistribution of dirt over the surface of oceans made solid by the ill fated use of ice-9 long ago in the Martian past.

Re:ICE-9

[daeley]

How do you Grok that?

You don't. You try to track down your karass and work out the wampeter. ;)

Detecting Water

[Matts]

Everyone knows that to detect water in a deep crater you drop a stone in it and wait for the plopping noise.

Jeez, and these guys call themselves scientists!

Turn your volume up!

[Volanin]

This sounds very interesting!
Click here [esa.int] for an audio interview about the finding.

Radar shmadar

[scolby]

Where's the astronaut with the dousing rods?

A solution to global warming...

[mustafap]

All this moaning about the ice caps melting, lets just nip over there and bring some back!

Official news from ESA

[Volanin]

From ESA [esa.int]:

For the first time in the history of planetary exploration, the MARSIS radar on board ESA's Mars Express has provided direct information about the deep subsurface of Mars.

First data include buried impact craters, probing of layered deposits at the north pole and hints of the presence of deep underground water-ice.

The subsurface of Mars has been so far unexplored territory. Only glimpses of the Martian depths could be deduced through analysis of impact crater and valley walls, and by drawing cross-sections of the crust deduced from geological mapping of the surface.

With measurements taken only for a few weeks during night-time observations last summer, MARSIS - the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding - is already changing our perception of the Red Planet, adding to our knowledge the missing 'third' dimension: the Martian interior.

First results reveal an almost circular structure, about 250 km in diameter, shallowly buried under the surface of the northern lowlands of the Chryse Planitia region in the mid-latitudes on Mars. The scientists have interpreted it as a buried basin of impact origin, possibly containing a thick layer of water-ice-rich material.

To draw this first exciting picture of the subsurface, the MARSIS team studied the echoes of the radio waves emitted by the radar, which passed through the surface and then bounced back in the distinctive way that told the 'story' about the layers penetrated.

These echo structures form a distinctive collection that include parabolic arcs and an additional planar reflecting feature parallel to the ground, 160 km long. The parabolic arcs correspond to ring structures that could be interpreted as the rims of one or more buried impact basins. Other echoes show what may be rim-wall 'slump blocks' or 'peak-ring' features.

The planar reflection is consistent with a flat interface that separates the floor of the basin, situated at a depth of about 1.5 to 2.5 km, from a layer of overlying different material. In their analysis of this reflection, scientists do not exclude the intriguing possibility of a low-density, water-ice-rich material at least partially filling the basin.

"The detection of a large buried impact basin suggests that MARSIS data can be used to unveil a population of hidden impact craters in the northern lowlands and elsewhere on the planet," says Jeffrey Plaut, Co-Principal Investigator on MARSIS. "This may force us to reconsider our chronology of the formation and evolution of the surface."

MARSIS also probed the layered deposits that surround the north pole of Mars, in an area between 10 and 40 East longitude. The interior layers and the base of these deposits are poorly exposed. Prior interpretations could only be based on imaging, topographic measurements and other surface techniques.

Two strong and distinct echoes coming from the area correspond to a surface reflection and subsurface interface between two different materials. By analysis of the two echoes, the scientists were able to draw the likely scenario of a nearly pure, cold water-ice layer thicker than 1 km, overlying a deeper layer of basaltic regolith. This conclusion appears to rule out the hypothesis of a melt zone at the base of the northern layered deposits.

To date, the MARSIS team has not observed any convincing evidence for liquid water in the subsurface, but the search has only just begun. "MARSIS is already demonstrating the capability to detect structures and layers in the subsurface of Mars which are not detectable by other sensors, past or present," says Giovanni Picardi, MARSIS Principal Investigator.

"MARSIS holds exciting promise to address, and possibly solve, a number of open questions of major geological significance," he concluded.

Total Recall called it first!

[mozumder]

"The entire core of Mars is made of ice. The reactor melts it, and it makes air!" - arnie

now, let's see if we find some alien artifacts...

Probe also discovers...

[Chayak]

What! Jimmy Hoffa! that's where he's been all these years!

It's not water...

[AngryNick]

...It's really just a copy of the Sony rootkit lurking beneath the surface.

Excellent!

[Glock27]

The prospects for successful Martian colonization are looking better and better!

Now we just need to start building some real (nuclear) spaceships.

Old news

[Locke2005]

This isn't the first evidence they have found of water on mars, see this article [nasa.gov]

Great result

[amightywind]

Subsurface sounding of Mars is a great result in itself. It is unique to Mars exploration so far. The idea of looking at the equivalent of a seizmic profile on another planet blows my mind. No need for additional hyperbole or speculation. By the way, the results suggest subsurface water, not ice. Too bad they didn't provide an estimated depth legend. To the poster, RTFA.

cold hard science

[routerguy666]

"could be deduced"

"have interpreted it as"

"possibly containing"

"could be interpreted as"

"what may be"

"the intriguing possibility"

"prior interpretations"

"scientists were able to draw the likely scenario"

"but the search has only begun"

Ahh yes, science. Where shades of gray run screaming from the cold hard face of objective facts!

Underground water

[Mprx]

While it is from a website full of pseudoscience and unconvincing "fossil" photographs, I found this stereophoto (view with crossed eyes for 3d view) very interesting:

http://xenotechresearch.com/geyop122.htm [xenotechresearch.com]

I can't think of any possible explanation for this kind of geology other than water erosion. If there's liquid water below ground, maybe it's possible for it to reach the surface and remain liquid long enough to produce this feature.

Makes me think

[menkhaura]

We sit here, discussing about how to make an alien world suitable for our own needs, as if it belonged to us or something like that. How would we feel if we found out that, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a bunch of hairy little green men, looking at this blue grain of dust traveling around a smallish nondescript star, discussed and moved to "tatooineform" it, ignorant or oblivious to our presence?

I feel very uncomfortable talking about (possibly) someone else's world like this. It seems as if we were talking about taking posession of a seemingly abandoned house.

Yup

[everphilski]

Nasa found water years ago http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2009318.stm [bbc.co.uk]

-everphilski-

Re:Yup

[BarryNorton]

NASA did not "find water" years ago... or ever! They found the gamma-ray spectrometry signature for hydrogen and proposed this was likely locked up in ice. Now a different means has been used to measure the subsurface (much more effectively in terms of depth, if less conclusively in terms of composition) and also found results not inconsistent with ice. We will probably not 'find ice' until someone goes there and drills. Until then, different means of measurement are a good idea (even though the media, and worse the bottom-feeding pseudo-journalism of sites like Slashdot, will misinterpret the conclusions that can be drawn).

Re:Yup

[tntguy]

NASA did not "find water" years ago... or ever!

Lies! Definitive proof of water on Mars [nasa.gov].

Re:Yup

[vought]

Is this Martian water anything like the ice holes found near Uranus?

Re:Yup

[BarryNorton]

I can never finish a Mars bar without a glass of milk... I hope there's some of that up there!

What is it then, Barry?

[everphilski]

Your right. We haven't drank the water yet. But gamma ray spectrometry is the best tool we have (and beats the crap out of radar) What else would give a positive hydrogen signature like that? Methane? No. Not cold enough. Peroxide? We could only wish but no, not stable enough. Seriously, what else has that strong a hydrogen signature?

-everphilski-

Re:What is it then, Barry?

[BarryNorton]

You have a very black and white world view. Either Spectrometry or RADAR must be the only useful evidence. I must either accept the speculative conclusion or believe there's no water (and provide an alternate explanation).

At risk of repeating myself - NASA's evidence was compelling, but their conclusion cannot be accepted as proven. ESA's evidence adds something because their RADAR-like approach says more about the depth of whatever is there. (And NASA want to conclude not just water, but a significant

Re:What is it then, Barry?

[everphilski]

Either Spectrometry or RADAR must be the only useful evidence.

I never said that. What I said is that spectrometry is the better tool, as it can identify elements where as radar identifies masses (which really doesn't tell you much), and as the ESA is finding out - the ionosphere, weak as it is messes around with it when you are trying to use it from orbit. Right tool for the job - spectrometer is a better tool. Both in conjunction would be ideal. But they are sensing different regions of mars, so you can'

Re:What is it then, Barry?

[BarryNorton]

Both in conjunction would be ideal

That's all I'm saying - since water is only a hypothesis, adding evidence is the right approach (though I take your point about wanting to match the areas scanned).

I'm an engineer - I take the data I'm given and draw the most logical conclusion

Sun crosses the sky and emerges on the other horizon half a day later... the most likely explanation is that it circles the Earth. (Being facetious, but you know what I mean...)

Re:What is it then, Barry?

[TenLow]

Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

Re:What is it then, Barry?

[everphilski]

yes, and my star wars profile likens me unto a sith lord. I also happen to be an engineer... when I'm given data, it's my job to draw the most logical conclusion from said data and use it constructively, not mentally masterbate.

-everphilski-

Re:What is it then, Barry?

[TenLow]

Ok so the total recall jokes are funny, but the starwars jokes arent? I'll never understand slashdot.

Re:Yup

[quarkscat]

Sure, it could be water or it could be ice, if you want to place your faith in either the ESA or NASA.

My bet is on a gigantic buried metallic face (a la the movie "Mission To Mars"). Intelligent design is the correct answer.

Re:Yup

[BarryNorton]

Sounds to me like they found the spectrometry signature of oxygen as well as hydrogen, in approximately a 1-to-2 ratio

ROFL... and you ask me if I read the article?!?

The BBC repeatedly fail to distinguish speculation from proof, but at least they stopped short of making things up!

Re:'Ice' is...

[drinkypoo]

Yes, and amounts is an intransitive verb :D "Vast ice" doesn't work, but "Vast amounts" works fine...

Re:'Ice' is...

[interiot]

Yes, but "martian" is a mass intransvestite [google.com], so Vast Martian Ice doesn't work so well.

Re:'Ice' is...

[Fortran IV]

Am I the only one who speed-read that headline as Vast Subsurface Martian Discovered? (Yipe!)

Re:'Ice' is...

[dr_labrat]

well, "vast" is actually referring to the word "amount" which is actually valid.
See such phrases as "large amounts"
"Big pond"
"large blue wobbly thing"

Re:'Ice' is...

[Marc2k]

A lot of you have said this, but I'm missing the use of the word 'amount' in the phrase, "Vast Subsurface Martian Ice Discovered." (which is the title) Maybe it's implied?

Re:'Ice' is...

[dr_labrat]

I read the body of the comment before posting. However, like many more, the article is off-limits.

Mod parent down

[everphilski]

For disinformation!

-everphilski-

Re:'Ice' is...

[Darius Jedburgh]

I wouldn't bother criticizing the body of a story on Slashdot, grammatical errors there are par for the course. I'm actually referring to the title. Even the telegraphic writing used in headlines is usually made up of grammatically correct phrases, if not entire sentences.

Re:internet domains for Mars?

[KiloByte]

Well... but considering the amount of attacks on ICANN, arguing about this issue now is a waste of flames^H^H^H^H^H^Hwisdom which can be used to troll^H^H^H^H^Hconduct a discussion elsewhere.

RFC fun

[GrAfFiT]

In fact, there's a RFC out there covering the IP adressing issues [ietf.org]. Have fun.

Re:Mouse on Mars

[evil agent]

...we can see millions of light years away using these amazing telescopes, but we STILL haven't set foot on the next planet over.

Just take a step back for a second and try to compare the difficulty and complexity of building spacecraft with that of building a telescope. They're not quite on the same level.

Re:Mouse on Mars

[evil agent]

Yes, but how many months/years would it take to get to Mars using the Saturn V? That's a lot supplies they'll have to take with them, which will increase the weight at liftoff, which will require more thrust, etc. Plus, look at where we're at even today. We have enough trouble just getting things into orbit.

Perhaps if we pushed the technology continually since the moon landing, then maybe. But the main factor is that there was really no reason to do so, militarily speaking. Believe it or not, the spa

Re:Mouse on Mars

[LWATCDR]

You can seem thousands of light years with your Mark I eyeball. We couldn't fly at all 100 years ago. We couldn't put anything in orbit 5o years ago, How the heck could we have gone to Mars a long time ago? You must have some strange idea of what a long time ago is. Even 20 years ago if the US had made a massive effort would have been pretty fast. That would have been roughly 15 years after first landing on the moon.
Don't bet me wrong I am all for spending more on space but their is no way that we could hav

Re:Mouse on Mars

[Bamfarooni]

When are we going to send a manned mission to Mars? We understand so much about the Universe, we can see millions of light years away using these amazing telescopes, but we STILL haven't set foot on the next planet over.

As soon as someone is willing to pony up $100B, and sacrafice the lives of a couple of astronauts (since getting there is a whole lot easier than getting back).

Re:Mouse on Mars

[Ironsides]

I don't think "sacrifice" is the right word. I'm sure that there are quite a few people that would go. Even if it meant not coming back.

*raises hand* I volunteer!

Re:Mouse on Mars

[Ironsides]

Maybe if we used tax money for space exploration instead of bombs this wouldn't be an issue; I think we could have been there a long time ago.

I wonder if you realise how much the DoD has helped NASA out over the years.

Re:Nice Reporting Slashdot....

[Liam Slider]

No, they found ice...they may have also found liquid water in addition to ice.

A dogma that works

[jfengel]

Being skeptical is a good thing but head in the sand dogma is hurting not helping the science.

How, exactly? Suppose, for giggles, that the scientists decided to be less skeptical and run shouting in the streets, "There's water on Mars! And two of three Viking tests showed that there's life on Mars! Yay!" And then...

Then what, exactly? We don't really know anything more than we did this morning; we've just decided to reinterpret the data more optimistically.

Maybe you're just suggesting that the public would be more behind additional scientific research if they thought there was something extraordinary like life on other planets to find there. But that's public relations, not science. Science is about knowledge, not opinion.

It is only by building piece of evidence upon other pieces of evidence that science proceeds. That's dogmatic, perhaps, but it's an extremely successful way of looking at the world. When you start to accept speculation and extrapolation as fact, you gradually introduce more and more errors until you don't really know anything any more.

And I wouldn't call water on Europa an accepted fact, though you wouldn't necessarily know it from reading Slashdot, where the best information on Europa seems to come from the movie 2010. Water on Europa is looked at by astrophysicists in exactly the same way as water on Mars: there is tantalizing evidence but no proof, yet. It won't take muddy boots; it'll just take more probes and more analysis of the existing evidence to rule out other possibilities.

Only when there's no other interpretation of the data can you grant something the status of "fact". And the more you want something to be true, the harder you'd better double-check that it's not just wishful thinking. That's brought down more than one good scientist in the past.

Additional work will continue to be done on the most likely hypotheses. Tantalizing evidence for water on Mars allows us to build machines that will be able to look for it in more detail because we know where, what kind, etc. to look for. Our time and money are limited, so we limit ourselves to the most likely hypotheses. That's why announcements like this are celebrated, but cautiously.

Water on Mars

[queenb**ch]

The biggest argument against liquid water on mars is this little thing called physics. Water on earth and water on Mars, both being made of H20, behave the same. Since we're aware of the temperature of Mars, liquid water on the surface NOT existing is pretty much a forgone conclusion. The average surface temperature on Mars is MINUS 63 Celcius. Considering that water freezes at 0 degress celcius, I hardly think that it's dogma to insist that the "puddle" you saw was something else besides liquid water.

T

No...

[mtec]

We want to bottle that water and sell it here under the exclusive 'God of War' label for 2 bucks a pop.
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Coca Cola