Curiosity Finds Volcanic Soils 52
Zothecula writes "NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has completed its first soil analysis of the Red Planet. The unmanned explorer used an advanced, miniaturized X-ray diffraction instrument that is part of the Chemistry and Mineralogy instrument (CheMin) of its internal laboratory. The soil, collected at a site designated 'Rocknest' in Gale Crater, reveals that Martian soil is a weathered volcanic type similar to soils found in the Hawaiian Islands."
And, of course, a shot of the area because it looks cool.
I'm still waiting... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'm still waiting... (Score:5, Funny)
Pretty sure that was their main reason for equipping it with a laser.
Pack your bags! (Score:5, Funny)
Martian soil is a weathered volcanic type similar to soils found in the Hawaiian Islands
Now all it needs is air pressure, oxygen, water, more sunlight, an ozone layer, a magnetic field, arable soil, flora, and fauna--and we can live there no problem!
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Water? Like from the toilet?
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Eh, wake me up when they discover mai tai drinks on mars...
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I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Mars committed volcanic suicide. By this, I theorize that Mars once had a magnetosphere and a dense atmosphere, then started violently puking its core out until its magnetosphere weakened to he point of stripping its atmosphere. Core was iron, hence "The Red Planet."
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Now all it needs is air pressure, oxygen, water, more sunlight, an ozone layer, a magnetic field, arable soil, flora, and fauna--and we can live there no problem!
You forgot the Polynesian girls with wreaths of flowers, a dying language with very few distinct phonemes and a naval base with many battleships and few airplanes. But I would personally omit the Christian missionaries, they have really corrupted the locals' morals. Shame on them!
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Martian soil is a weathered volcanic type similar to soils found in the Hawaiian Islands
Now all it needs is air pressure, oxygen, water, more sunlight, an ozone layer, a magnetic field, arable soil, flora, and fauna--and we can live there no problem!
As this is slashdot, I'm just waiting for smeone to say that these are merely technical details, which with the use of highly paid computer scientists and engineers we can solve before too long, probably in the next five to ten years.
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Probably something between the two.
They should take some HDR multi-exposures and show that off :)
Re:Which would we (humans) see? (Score:4, Informative)
Your brain color-adjusts all the time. Back in the film camera days, there was indoor film and outdoor film. If you used outdoor film indoors the colors came out way too warm/yellowish, if you used indoor film outdoors the photo would come out way too blueish/cool. The colors as shown by the film are what the actual colors were, but your brain adapts and changes the colors to "normal".
Amazing (Score:2)
Wow, evidence that there were once active volcanoes on Mars, who would have guessed that...
I think Olympus Mons is bigger than Hurricane Sandy, although it probably didn't affect anybody on this planet.
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although it probably didn't affect anybody on this planet.
The top of that volcano is literally "in space" it's so tall. It's possible that... way back when it did erupt, it seeded this planet with life.
What other kinds of minerals were they expecting? (Score:2)
It's not like anyone would expect to find a lot of sedimentary or organic minerals on mars.
Re:What other kinds of minerals were they expectin (Score:5, Informative)
They are in the commissioning phase for the instruments. They chose to sample this location precisely because it looked like it would be a fairly ordinary volcanic sand. They say in the press release that it's more or less what they were expecting. They weren't expecting big surprises, just confirmation that the instruments do indeed seem to be working.
They will have more interesting sedimentary rocks to sample once they move on to new sites. In fact, some finely-layered, probably sedimentary bedrock outcrop can be seen on the other side of the gully to the northeast of where the rover is now, in the direction they are planning to head next (the telescopic zoom on the mastcams is awesome!). I think the short-term plan is to drill some of those outcrops and run them through the chemical and other analyses. Then they'll probably turn around and head south to look at the main outcrops on the mountain in the middle of Gale Crater, but that's probably a month or two away at least.
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What, and we should just assume the expectations are correct? It's always better to know for sure. The reaction from the people interviewed seems to be "Yep, pretty much exactly as we expected". That doesn't mean it was a waste of time, that means they can be even more sure that their models and predictions are right. There's no point in basing a later hypothesis on data which you haven't actually proven: you risk spending years of time and huge sums of money barking up the wrong tree.
Seems to be logical. (Score:5, Interesting)
A lot of the dirt we see on Earth, is made from decayed plant material, even normal beach (non-volcanic) sand on our beaches are made up of a lot of crustacean shells. Even with some water chances are Mars is lifeless, if there is live it wouldn't be as plentiful. So the soil would be mostly volcanic like.
Sweet (Score:1)
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There are none on mars.
You will need to fling large amount of ready-to-use nutrient rich soil along with those plants.
Now you have plants converting nutrients AND carbon dioxide in more nutrients.
Thinking further, I think you need to resurrect one of em dinosaur era plants for trapping carbon dioxide.
Plants did a lot of carbon dioxide trapping in those days.
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No worries, the rover has been dropping shit around since it landed.
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They also like nutrients from the soil. There are none on mars. You will need to fling large amount of ready-to-use nutrient rich soil along with those plants. Now you have plants converting nutrients AND carbon dioxide in more nutrients.
Sure? I live in NZ, and the reason why we can feed 20 million but only have a population of 4.5 million is because our soil is so fertile - after thousands of years of volcano blasts. One small town (Pukekoke) gets two (or possibly three) harvests of onions a year. And the soil there is a browny-red.
Now I'm assuming that volcanic matter needs special stuff to help plants get started, but what's that? "Nutrients" = ???
I'm also assuming we don't want to plant Mars full of onions...
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If we can get onions to grow, then I have no problem covers Mars in onions. If we could add a legume or potatoes, so much the better.
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If we can get onions to grow, then I have no problem covers Mars in onions. If we could add a legume or potatoes, so much the better.
Hemp is the ideal crop for Mars as it's tough and versatile. Plus it would help encourage space tourism and even migration to Mars, as long as we didn't impose antiquated Earth laws there.
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"There are none on mars."
And you know this..how? Tests on the soil say otherwise.
Did you mean 'organic matter'?
"You will need to fling large amount of ready-to-use nutrient rich soil along with those plants."
I have no problem with that. Toss it into the northern regions. Some sort of Ivy. Lets see what happens.
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Yes, plants do like carbon dioxide. The problem is, plants also like water:
6CO2 + 6H2O + (sunlight) ---> C6H12O6 + 6O2
And, even if there was water vapor, the atmospheric pressure is so low that I don't think there's a high enough concentration CO2 for them to live.
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Plants also need oxygen to survive too.
In plants oxygen is produced in photosynthesis but most oxygen used in plant respiration enters passively by diffusion or through structural openings such as lenticels. [wikipedia.org]
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Tt cost 400 Million, so around 1 dollar and 30 cents.
Terrestrial applications (Score:2)
I found the links to various terrestrial applications of the x-ray diffraction technology to be quite interesting. Portable or just more compact lab equipment based on this could be quite useful.
Who knows? We may soon be able to run a sample through one of these and see what Slashdot editors have been smoking.
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Analysis complete (Score:2)
Martian soil contains volcanic residue, and Strawberry Tang, that is why its red.
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Me too. Blows my mind; now and then I find myself suddenly thinking: oh yeah, there's a frickin ROBOT on another PLANET right frickin NOW! It is incredibly cool.
That, and voyager passing the heliosphere. That is in some ways the number one human physical achievement.
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Too bad you weren't around (I assume) when Neil Armstrong first stepped on to the Moon. We were glued to TV that day. That was even harder to believe at the time. Telstar 1, the first satellite to beam live television from Europe to the US was only launched 7 years before that.