Frozen water found on Mars

[Spade]

I couldn't find an existing topic, so here you go:

Phoenix Spacecraft Confirms Water on Mars
By Art Chimes
Washington DC
01 August 2008


Scientists working on NASA's Phoenix Mars lander have confirmed that there is water ice on the Red Planet. But they still have not found any evidence of life on Mars. VOA's Art Chimes reports

Phoenix's telescoping arm scoops up soil samples

The Phoenix Mars Missionwas launched a year ago to look for water and the complex organic molecules that could be signs that life once existed on Mars.

Water had already been identified from a distance, by the Mars-orbiting Odyssey spacecraft, and Phoenix had photographed what was presumed to be melting ice at the landing site.

Phoenix landed on Mars two months ago. It is equipped with a telescoping arm to enable it to scoop up soil samples so they can be analyzed by the spacecraft's onboard instruments.

Although Phoenix is apparently sitting on top of a layer of ice just a few centimeters below the surface, the clumpy quality of the Martian soil made it difficult to retrieve a sample.

Finally, though, on Wednesday, Phoenix scientist William Boyton said they were able to analyze a soil sample and confirmed that it contained frozen water.

"We've now finally touched it and tasted it. That's one thing that hasn't been done before and I'd like to say from my standpoint, it tastes very fine, I'm very glad to be in this position"

Water, of course, is essential to life as we know it, but project scientist Peter Smith said they've found more than just water.

"We're also finding nutrients - sodium, potassium, magnesium, fluorides - things that we find in our own bodies and are definitely nutrients that are important for life. However, we have yet to discover organic materials."

Smith said it will be for future Mars missions to determine whether life has ever existed on Mars.

In the meantime, NASA has extended the Phoenix mission for another month, through the end of September.

http://www.voanews.com/english/AmericanLife/2008-08-01-voa57.cfm

Pretty exciting news, if you ask me. Now we can put a check next to "find water" and put "find organic material" at a higher priority on The List of Things to Do on Mars.

 

[black_dust]

Pretty exciting news, if you ask me. Now we can put a check next to "find water" and put "find organic material" at a higher priority on The List of Things to Do on Mars.

Followed by, Land humans on Mars, have sex on Mars. have an Orgy on Mars, Cheat with another Girl on Mars with a Martian then come home


p.s so water? your saying i can move my water bed up there? cool

 

[Immortalfire]

Great use of tax dollars, drilling for ice on another planet instead of working on the problems of our own

 

[Superman4ever]

Frozen water? Is that anything like ice? Cause that'd be cool if they found ice. Mars Cubes, *****es!

 

[rizzo51]

lol, mmmm martian snow cones..

 

[Anubis Raptor]

I couldn't find an existing topic, so here you go:



http://www.voanews.com/english/AmericanLife/2008-08-01-voa57.cfm

Pretty exciting news, if you ask me. Now we can put a check next to "find water" and put "find organic material" at a higher priority on The List of Things to Do on Mars.

Cool news, thanks!

 

[SuperMonkey]

Great use of tax dollars, drilling for ice on another planet instead of working on the problems of our own

...

 

[The Battousai]

Great use of tax dollars, drilling for ice on another planet instead of working on the problems of our own

Yeah, because the government wasn't squandering it in useless affairs for the past 6 1/2 years...

 

[NoName86]

Great use of tax dollars, drilling for ice on another planet instead of working on the problems of our own

I kind of agree with your statement, but at the same time I feel it is probably very necessary that we start looking for such things on surrounding planets as soon as possible, that way WHEN the time comes that we need to branch out off of earth and colonize other planets, we will be ready. It might not seem necessary now, but in reality if we are to ever get off of this planet by the time it is destroyed then we need to start looking at our other options for colonization.

 

[NoName86]

Stop the wars, this space program pales in comparison to the amount of money we spend on wars. And for what good? Like I mentioned in my post above, at least with space programs there is a good reason.

 

[SuperMonkey]

Yeah, because the government wasn't squandering it in useless affairs for the past 6 1/2 years...

I think you mean 16 years

 

[black_dust]

I kind of agree with your statement, but at the same time I feel it is probably very necessary that we start looking for such things on surrounding planets as soon as possible, that way WHEN the time comes that we need to branch out off of earth and colonize other planets, we will be ready. It might not seem necessary now, but in reality if we are to ever get off of this planet by the time it is destroyed then we need to start looking at our other options for colonization.

Then what happens once we bone Mars so it no longer functions the way it should, i sure as hell aint living on uranus

 

[Spade]

Eventually, the human race will have to consider how to get out of this solar system (if we survive that long). The Sun, however beneficial for the moment, is a ticking time bomb. It doesn't need to supernova to become an issue for us; in a billion years, scientists estimate that life on Earth will have ended. We won't even see the Sun become a red giant. So simply planet-hopping won't be enough. Plus, if we find indigenous life on Mars, I think it'll take a long time if ever before we colonize it. There'd be so much debate on whether we should be mucking around with an alien ecosystem that we'd be better off finding other places.

 

[Jack Bauer]

So should would we all get our asses to Mars then?

 

[NoName86]

I'm not necessarily talking about the sun, but that won't be for another few billion years which should gives us plenty of time to get far away, by that time according to the 3 types of civilization, we should be a type 3 civilization capable of colonizing galaxies and harnessing an entire galaxy's energy for our use.

I'm actually talking about things like asteriods or nuclear wars that have the potential to wipe us out. So it really is necessary to try and fget off this planet as soon as possible.

 

[Arcturus]

Very interesting. Thanks for posting it up, The Chibi Kiriyama.

Here is the Phoenix Mars Mission webpage.

 

[Arcturus]

Also, a good article regarding Space Exploration & tax dollars.

 

[Silk Spectre]

The question is, "Did they find Dr. Manhattan on Mars?"

 

[bullets]

The question is, "Did they find Dr. Manhattan on Mars?"

I think he is in different galaxy but the search continues.............

 

[chaseter]

Great use of tax dollars, drilling for ice on another planet instead of working on the problems of our own

It may be useful someday but we are more concerned it seems about finding another place to live instead of fixing and completely exploring where we live now. I guess our government has ADHD.

 

[black_dust]

Abit off topic i think we are (the Earth that is) like those tribes people sometimes find out in the middle of the rain forest that no ones ever had contact with, we could have all this **** going on around us like space travel but no ones stumbled across us yet.

 

[Galactus]

I couldn't find an existing topic, so here you go:

Actually I posted this in the "space and astronomy megathread"

 

[Speedball]

Abit off topic i think we are (the Earth that is) like those tribes people sometimes find out in the middle of the rain forest that no ones ever had contact with, we could have all this **** going on around us like space travel but no ones stumbled across us yet.

LOL!!!
Have you ever watched Star Trek or Doctor Who...because that's basically what Earth is in our time.

and didn't we know there was Ice on Mars when we "discovered" that Mars had polar ice caps?

 

[Arcturus]

LOL!!!
Have you ever watched Star Trek or Doctor Who...because that's basically what Earth is in our time.

and didn't we know there was Ice on Mars when we "discovered" that Mars had polar ice caps?

Well yeah, but now we can actually analyze water from another world. For it's chemical and physical properties. And maybe they'll discover clues as to whether or not life is or has even been on Mars.

 

[cptjack]

I used to think that Mars was a VERY hot planet since it's closer to the sun, so it was surprising that there was actually FROZEN water!