Water ice found on Mars
Mars Phoenix Lander Twitter says: "Are you ready to celebrate? Well, get ready: We have ICE!!!!! Yes, ICE, *WATER ICE* on Mars! w00t!!! Best day ever!!"
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So it's not just 'white stuff'!?
Now if we could only find some gin.
and tonic.
and a lime.
.
.
.
In fact, forget the ice!
Ice, at the north pole. Who could ever have guessed?
The LAist article calls it Ice Water in the title, but gets it right as WATER ICE in the body text. I wonder if they'll fix that.
w0000000000000000000t
Wait. Mark did it too. Is this an ice water joke I'm missing?
Don't get out the cocktail shakers just yet, it could be CO2 and not H2O. It could also be something that we haven't come across before, be patient.
Good call Falcon Seven.
Is there a severed foot in it?
It could also be something that we haven't come across before, be patient.
THAT would cause me to break out the party-crackers and Black Cats. How much cooler would that be?
Why couldn't it be solid CO2??
It's white
It sublimates
just asking
The ad campaign on SEPTA last year reminds us that its pronounced "Wooder Ice"
#7 Mars Ice Water Denialist.
I was also logging in just to suggest CO2, but it's been done. OK, I third (or fourth) that suggestion.
How long before it's sold as bottled water in convenience stores with the tagline, "Out of this world watery taste!"
Call me when they find ice tea.
Damn hot down here in Atlanta.
Could be that it is too warm for solid CO2 at 1 Martian atmosphere of pressure.
The Phoenix Mars Mission news item says water ice, it doesn't mention CO2.
convincing scientists that the material was frozen water that vaporized after digging exposed it.
I'm sure they have definitive tests on board.
Was gonna say w00t, but got put off by the CO2 brigade..
** shhhh! **
(woot!)
Yessssss.
"'It must be ice,' said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson."
That's a long way from "It is water ice".
Damn hot down here in Atlanta.
It was 84° in Atlanta today. We hit 117°. All your ice are belong to us.
YAY! Time to get rid of that pesky 1 child policy in China.... we can run this little planet into the ground now that we found a red ole fix-er-upper.
7,000,000,000 in another four years
Somebody should call NASA and suggest that they use spectroscopy to figure out if it's water ice or carbon dioxide. They probably won't have thought to do that.
'Technically' frozen CO2 is 'ice', dry ice to be exact. I'm hoping that it's the 'real' thing though, as the presence of water ice holds significant possibility for simple life forms or the 'building blocks' of life, amino acids.
If that doesn't call for a drink, I don't know what else could.
7,000,000,000 in another four years
Is that menu planning?
I'm hoping that it's the 'real' thing though, as the presence of water ice holds significant possibility for simple life forms or the 'building blocks' of life, amino acids.
Also better for making martinis.
Well...that's cool--it's good to finally have even tentative confirmation that there's water ice on Mars. But that doesn't really mean much. There's water ice on the Moon, Mercury's backside, damnear every Jovian moon, most of Saturns moons, most of Uranus' moons, most of Neptune's moons, and most Kuyper Belt Objects as well.
Water's everywhere. Hell, I vaguely remember reading of a spectrographic survey of the Orion Nebula that showed traces of water, as well.
not cold or high enough pressure for solid CO2.
8mb (0.008atm) and -20C to -80C
here is a CO2 phase diagram.
http://www.teamonslaught.fsnet.co.uk/co2%20phase%20diagram.GIF
Antinous - Agreed. We should also be sure to wave our credentials at them... oh, wait.
It's water. Water! WATER!! Like they'd say "water ice" when they meant "ice of some sort"...
Geez, you auger ONE probe into the ground ten years ago, and they take away your "Rocket Scientist" badge forever.
here;
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/28may_marsice.htm
NASA says "water" a few more times. From the Latin, meaning, "fucking water."
If they know the temperature and the pressure they can tell if it's CO2 or H2O.
WOOOOHOOOOOOO!!!!! Time to start packing!
I'd recommend putting that through a Brita before tasting.
I also would like to see some Martian water speculative fiction.
they have ice; get em!!
"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."
Dan Quayle... visionary...
So you mean to tell me they spent millions of dollars to send a probe millions of miles through space to find some ice? Give me two dollars, I'll drive two miles down the street and bring you back a whole bag of it.
OK, we has water.
It seems high time that we send a ship the size of Battlestar Galactica full of potential Mars seperatists including a stowaway in the hydroponics section to colonize and eventualy fight a new American revolution styled war. And the Russian team has to set Demos to blow out of orbit on arrival in case it is ever used as a death ray platform. (Red, Blue, Green Mars)
How about all us Happy Mutants commandeer the first manned expedition, then upon arrival go native? Share water, share life...
Water Ice NINE
O SHIT. DONT BRING IT BAK.
Nah, no fear. Ice Nine (the fictional version, not Ice IX) melts at about 120 degrees F. They would have noticed the difference.
Speaking of Quayle, anyone else here ever read Pamela Sargent's short story "Danny Goes to Mars"?
Excellent reading, and available in e-book form if you hit Google for it (and pony up a buck).
#37: OMG somehow you just made me envision a Team Fortress-style free-for-all on MARS. :D
Man, if they can get a Rita's on Mars, why can't they open one here in Denver.
We're so greedy, we have more ice than we need. Lets sticl to our own for a while.
Fixed : We're so greedy, we have more ice than we need. Lets stick to our own for a while.
@OrangeOrangutan, have you checked gas prices lately? Better make that four bucks.
And since it's so hot, half the ice will melt before you get back, and then half of that, by the time you get it from the car, meaning that either you will always have ice or that you will never get home, if we teach the controversy.
Not C02 or 'dry ice' as the atmosphere and/or gravity is not dense/heavy enough to create it, nor is the ground below it is cold enough to make it or maintain it. A thin layer of dirt isn't going to keep dry ice cold enough to prevent it from sublimating.
However, Ice made out of H20 WILL sublimate, as the atmosphere is so dry that it will evaporate as quick as it melts into the atmosphere.
IT. IS. H20.
Is anyone else from around Philadelphia feeling disappointed by the actual facts of the matter?
Eustace @40: But that's under Earth-normal temperature and pressure; what about when the pressure is a thousandth of Earth's and the temperature is at -13°F? Do you have a phase diagram for Ice Nine?
I hope it's water too, though perhaps not for the reason most do. Water means that we can find the future sources we'll need for terraforming. Unlike most other Mars enthusiasts, I'm a little apprhensive that finding indicators of life would mean that the processes needed to terraform the red planet would have to be postponed while the implications of non-terrestrial life is fully examined. Exciting but the delay will be dissappointing. Never the less, whatever it is, it will be marvelous and will prompt more and more research of Mars.
Begun the Mars War has.
I hope it's water too, though perhaps not for the reason most do. Water means that we can find the future sources we'll need for terraforming. Unlike most other Mars enthusiasts, I'm a little apprhensive that finding indicators of life would mean that the processes needed to terraform the red planet would have to be postponed while the implications of non-terrestrial life is fully examined. Exciting but the delay will be dissappointing. Never the less, whatever it is, it will be marvelous and will prompt more and more research of Mars.
Doug, you find the idea of terraforming Mars, more exciting than the possibility of finding life off-Earth?
Frankly, if we do find life on Mars, it will no longer be 'our' planet to terraform.
Great, we found ice. Typical human and then we destroyed it. Now, what if that was the only ice that was and Mars, and what if an entire eco system had been based on that small patch of ice. We destroyed it. I wonder if anyone thought of it from that perspective.
In the photo, I can clearly see the black studio floor at the bottom of the trench. First they fake the moon landings, now Mars.
If this is Italian Water Ice, then I will take a root-beer flavored one.
Reason #116 why BoingBoing is a great blog: I come here and read this story and see intelligent comments about why the ice could not have been CO2. I read the same story on Engadget and lose a half hour of my life reading comments that quickly plunged into an atheism versus creationism debate.
Has Mars really reached over 0 degrees celcius to even turn water to a liquid, let alone a gas? It may be frozen something but water it is not, at least from the facts presented.
too lazy to check NASA to see if chemistry assay has been done/published. What other compounds can exist at that temperature and pressure etc. that would sublimate? besides C02 and H20?
Godless atheists at NASA don't want you to know that there are dinosaur bones on Mars. The ice is the remnants of the great flood that killed them. Jesus brought the good news to the Martians nearly 2000 years ago, just after visiting America.
You're making the false assumption that water behaves in the Martian atmosphere the same way it does in Earth's atmosphere.
It doesn't.
The very low pressure atmosphere allows frozen water to convert directly to gas (sublimation).
Looking at that graph, typical Earth behavior is at about 101 kPa and 290 degrees Kelvin.
Mars on average has an atmospheric pressure of 60 Pa (NOT kPa mind you). At that pressure, liquid water can't exist.
Whoops. 600 Pa, not 60. Typity type too fast.
#57 DKFLA:
Water only turns to liquid or gas at 0 degrees celcius at standard Earth sea-level pressure. Mars being without much of an atmosphere, it's atmospheric pressure is much lower, and thus water can turn into gas at a much lower temperature.
oops... Guysmiley's just too fast for me.
Mars has water. Great. Now how can we work this so the Great Lakes don't get diverted and emptied this century to feed the golf courses and swimming pools of the desert dwelling rich?
water is nice, how about helium 3?
Yes, how will our callow teenagers of the future get access to giant robots without helium 3?
oh, they'll get the robots, problem is: how to power them?
As Casewar mentions, we've known there's been ice for a long time. I'm not sure why it's so exciting. In fact, here's a huge lake of it discovered several years ago (which didn't get much press, though it was featured on Boing Boing):
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/08/05/beautiful-photograph.html
Maybe it's the fact that NASA's using leet. :)
You can also tell solid water from solid CO2 by the IR spectra. No need to know the pressure or temperature. for instance...http://www.astrochem.org/CO2H2O.html
well , the water is very nice but how are they going to claea all that nasty mold off the probe?
I won't be satisfied until we have autonomous spacebots sending out Twitters direct from their broadcast antennae to the internet. Ones they composed themselves, instead of this fakey-fake cutesy PR office crap.
If they need help, I'd be happy to head up the Human-size-thumbs-on-millimeter-square-smartphone-QWERTY-keyboards Typo Simulator Subroutine.
Sure, we knew there was water on Mars already... big w00t. That's not the exciting part. What's exciting is that the lander is RIGHT ON TOP OF IT, a mere two or three scoops away in any direction. It will be interesting to see how things go from here... still loads that can go wrong with the the tech, but it's nice that they didn't have to waste a bunch of time digging through hard soil. Lots of choices and lots of time for the Holy Grail to be found, let's just hope it really is made of wood (or any other organic compound will do fine).
It's looking good for this being water ice, but until it can be measured as such it's disappearing something. Since being eager to believe in microscopic bacteria poop a few years ago, I guard my optimism more carefully when it comes to the red planet. Still, we're so in a great age for astronomy, water or not.