Mars Water Announcements – Then And Now
Mars Express Detects Liquid Water Under Mars’ South Pole, ESA
“Evidence for the Red Planet’s watery past is prevalent across its surface in the form of vast dried-out river valley networks and gigantic outflow channels clearly imaged by orbiting spacecraft. Orbiters, together with landers and rovers exploring the Martian surface, also discovered minerals that can only form in the presence of liquid water. But the climate has changed significantly over the course of the planet’s 4.6-billion-year history and liquid water cannot exist on the surface today, so scientists are looking underground. Early results from the 15-year-old Mars Express spacecraft already found that water ice exists at the planet’s poles and is also buried in layers interspersed with dust.”
Thinking back to that first "Mars water" discovery in 2000: https://t.co/6QiSbsqtTE
"NASA Watch, an independent Web site that monitors the space agency, first reported news of the Mars discovery earlier this week." pic.twitter.com/60hL5QKxrK
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) July 25, 2018
Toot toot!
Wish we could send some more “low cost” rovers with 8k cameras and water instruments. Mas produce them for scale of cost purposes and go go go.
These one off rovers are only “trickling” data – we need the flow of a rushing river.
JMHO
Very interesting, but this is just the beginning of the scientific process and much proof is needed and work to be done.
What is interesting is that the Martian icecap seems to behave similar to the polar glaciers on Earth which often have liquid water beneath them which serves as a lubricant enabling them to move. I wonder if there is any evidence of similar movement on Mars around the edges of the icecap, or if it’s hidden by the Carbon Doxide frozen on top of it.
I would assume that edges near the surface would sublimate or freeze and would not indicate liquid. Hard to tell.
It would be interesting if it behaves more like a lava flow that a glacial flow. But it is a possibility with the low temperatures in the polar regions.
Oh and the first indications of water where from the branching valley “networks” that were first observed by Mariner 9 in 1972, but not enough consensus existed to really believe what they were seeing. Belief came with MGS MOC imagery in the late 90s.
I think just about everyone was convinced by the Viking orbiter imagery. Since then, the debate has mostly been about how much liquid water, and how long it has been since conditions allow liquid water on the surface.
Now we just need to start building canals to transport the water from the poles to where it’s needed for settlement ?
ok Jules….
Actually OK Isaac as the old Issac Asimov story the “Martian Way” (1953) did discuss water pipelines from the poles before the settlers developed a way to land blocks of ice from Saturn Rings on Mars.
The idea was popularized at the turn of the century by Percival Lowell, who thought he saw the same canals that Giovanni Schiaparelli claimed to have seen in the 1870’s. Whereas Schiaparelli didn’t attempt to explain the canals (or channels as he actually described them), Lowell was convinced that they were created by intelligent beings, and he theorized that they were built as an attempt by the Martian civilization to bring water from the poles and replenish their once habitable world.
Yes, his books inspired a lot of writers to write some great stories about Mars starting with H. G. Wells. His work also built one of the great observatories for planetary research, Lowell Observatory. Indeed, one wonders how much of a space program we would have today without him.
His observatory was a big improvement over past ones, because he realized a mountain in the middle of nowhere (sorry Flagstaff) was an ideal location. Previously, major observatories had been built in or near major cities. (Lick wanted his in downtown San Francisco, but was talked into Mt. Hamilton on the grounds that it was, just barely, within sight from downtown San Francisco.)
But Lowell’s idea about Martians also did a great deal of harm to planetary astronomy. Ever since, a large number of astronomers have either been dismissive or suspicious of people who want to waste observing time by looking at planets. When some people say thier work will revolutionize physics by identifying dark energy, it’s hard to get taken seriously when the founder of your institution was the sourse of space alien conspiracy theories.
That is a pity since the Southwest Institute seems to have moved beyond its founder’s obsession with Bigfoot.
https://www.swri.org/who-we…
“Thomas Baker Slick Jr. – an adventurer, philanthropist and oilman – founded SwRI on a South Texas ranch in 1947.”
http://www.lorencoleman.com…
“This incredible story of Texas millionaire Tom Slick’s quest for the Abominable Snowmen, Bigfoot, Giant Salamanders, Orang Pendek, and other cryptids (creatures unknown to science) reveals a life made for the movies.”
I wish you hadn’t mentioned Southwest Research. Your comment about the founder and his yetti obsession is correct. But I used to work for SwRI, and I didn’t exactly leave on friendly terms. I politely describe it as unreconcilable difference with senior management.
In any case, it is a good point. Despite my disagreements with management, the company does some excellent scientific work. Their two instruments on Juno are an example, and the current instrument Co-Is are people I have a high opinion of (the original Co-I for the JADE instrument was part of my dispute with management, but the new one is, in my opinion, very good and exceptionally competent.)
I guess that shows that people working at an institution founded by someone with really crazy fixations can and do achieve excellent work. But when the founder is a nut case, it is a little bit harder for the scientist involved to seem credible.
True, but Lowell Observatory has nearly a hundred year record of good quality research, so perhaps astronomers should cut them some slack as well. Especially as their long history of planetary mapping led to the U.S. Geological Survey locating their planetary mapping and astrogeology unit near them in Flagstaff to leverage their expertise.
https://astrogeology.usgs.gov/
The problem may be that science is both competitive and intangible. It’s value is largely a matter of opinion and preference. In other competitive environments, there is usually something tangible to distinguish one product from another. (Does the car get good milage? Is it big enough for the whole family plus some friends?)
For most science, there isn’t anything similar. Is studying radio emissions from a neutron star more or less valuable than studying radio emissions from Jupiter? So, when it comes to competition for funding or observing time, a fair amount of marketing is involved. People want to make their science sound cool and exciting, which is fine. But I also see people going out of their way to make other people’s science look bad. And anything having to do with space aliens, no matter how long ago, is easy to go after.
If true then it looks like the first methane fuel plant would be located at the pole.
Remember that the Mars Express team have consistently talked up evidence for water, and not always in agreement with other researchers! They may well be right this time, but…
Not just Mars Express. Everyone is repeatedly discovering water in the solar system. (And people get upset with me at conferences, since many put a Europa plume denyer in the same league as people who deny the reality of climate change.) But this is the first time I’ve seen a solid report of something actually wet. Liquid water at some remote time in the past, yes. Some features which might (or might not) indicate transient, currently liquid water, yes. But this time, it looks both current and unambiguous. Under a kilometer and a half of glacial deposits, but even so…
It is interesting to see that the glaciers on Mars may behave like glaciers on Earth.
http://www.antarcticglacier…
The glaciers on Earth and Mars have some simarities. But they also have major differences. The dynamics depend on snowfall or condensation, evaporation or sublimation, and a whole lot of other things. The physics is the same but the results are different. On Mars, there is very little evidence for glacial flow. At least not now or in the polar region. Evidence for past glacial flows is fairly convincing.
Yes, it will be very interesting to learn their history. A series of cores drilled in the two polar glaciers of Mars would tell us a lot about the planet’s climate history. And if Earth is a guide bubbles in the cores should preserve samples of its ancient atmosphere. But it will be a long time before the ability to take such core samples is available.
Gas bubbles would be nice, but those are layered deposits. On Earth, those sorts of formations are some of the richest you can find. Thin and thick layers say something about how often major, global dust storms occur, or how frequently an unusually cold winter puts down more frost. Or obliquity variations and long-term climate cycles. Or just about anything. Unfortunately, you’re right; this sort drilling isn’t a near-term prospect. It might be plausible in the context of human exploration. But it’s way beyond what even a large robotic mission (e.g. Curiosity or Mars 2020) could accomplish.