Phoenix finds ice centimeters below Martian surface.

[Fliko]

Umm, I thought this was already discovered years ago in the 90s, or early 2000s?

 

[theotherguy]

How do they know it's ice water?
Lots of things can be ice.
Maybe it's CO2.

It's possible, that's why the next step is for Phoenix to scoop some of the ice up before it sublimates and analyze the gas it gives off.

 

[Pesmerga]

There is a lot of CO2 ice on Mars in the winter. However, Phoenix landed in the Martian arctic during the summer (because the lander is solar powered, the extra summer light is a necessity). In the Martian summer it is much too hot for dry ice to be solid. It would be like trying to keep water ice from melting on a 140-degree day here on Earth.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) will freeze on Mars at -125 C. Today's weather report from the Canadian weather station on Phoenix shows a low of -80 C -- way too hot for dry ice to stay solid right now. (Note the largest "pebbles" of ice were seen to stay solid for a day before disappearing).

 

[Sedako]

How do they know it's ice water?
Lots of things can be ice.
Maybe it's CO2.

Where the lander is, it is currently the Martian summer. The temperature there is too high for CO2 to be solid. I believe the low at that spot was -85C, and dry ice requires -125C.

Edit: -80C

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/06/answering-mars.html

 

[Acepilotf14]

Could be some other liquid/gas thing that freezes at that temperature.
D:

 

[theotherguy]

Could be some other liquid/gas thing that freezes at that temperature.
D:

Well, they need to confirm it just to make sure its not salt that was blown away or CO2/salt mixture that just happens to have the right sublimation point.

 

[McGooTheWise]

damn. D: Earth is the ****ing shit!

Jesus Christ Mars, what a piece of shit you are. Grow a ****ing tree or something.


My older brother is actually a very successful Aerospace engineer who applied to be an astronaut, but he is color blind so they couldn't pass him. I remember he brought home some solid rocket fuel or something from work one time when I was a young teen.

I hope we do find some critters or something in the ice. Imagine discovering an ancient civilization that existed billions of years before Earth. Or imagine the freakiest shit - finding a NASA space shuttle under the ice. with a complexity that we haven't achieved yet. I mean, we found a space shuttle from Earth buried on Mars - but it was from the future.

Black Hole or some time dimension shit!

Can you say DooM?

If there is alien lesbian sex, I call the blue ones.

 

[Acepilotf14]

I say we just have a gigantic blue bewbed sex orgy.

 

[VirusType2]

Well, they need to confirm it just to make sure its not salt that was blown away or CO2/salt mixture that just happens to have the right sublimation point.

That's exactly what I was thinking.

 

[Jintor]

I say we just have a gigantic blue bewbed sex orgy.

I'm now freaked out because you have Samus in her skintight blue suit blushing as your avatar.

ARGH MY BRAIN

 

[highlander]

Buttsecks on mars. 0 gravity assecks... xD!

 

[nurizeko]

damn. D: Earth is the ****ing shit!

Jesus Christ Mars, what a piece of shit you are. Grow a ****ing tree or something.

Massive lulz, this would be in my sig if I could fit it.

I'm now freaked out because you have Samus in her skintight blue suit blushing as your avatar.

It'd be more effective if you could actually see her blue bewbz.



Its a cool find, because if its as its widely believed as water ice, then thats all the water and rocket fuel we could need for the foreseeable future of Martian missions.


And that is enough incentive to make NASA want to start a manned mission to Mars, which in turn means that returning to the moon to use it as a stopping off point/launch platform for the Mars mission is in the works.

every little bit that helps us put more boots in space and less in a god awful desert in the middle of nowhere populated only by religious fanatics and dirty terrorists is win-win in my books.