Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 3:04 am Posts: 12383 Gender: Male
This stuff is so cool; can't believe it's not getting bigger play....looks like they are going to dig through the surface and find some samples to look at. So cool that it's landed on an icy surface (well they believe ice is just below the surface).
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 11:54 pm Posts: 12287 Location: Manguetown Gender: Male
It really looks like what i saw from the airplain during the flight from Dallas to LA
_________________ There's just no mercy in your eyes There ain't no time to set things right And I'm afraid I've lost the fight I'm just a painful reminder Another day you leave behind
TUCSON, Ariz. -- Scientists relishing confirmation of water ice near the surface beside NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander anticipate even bigger discoveries from the robotic mission in the weeks ahead.
"It is with great pride and a lot of joy that I announce today that we have found proof that this hard bright material is really water ice and not some other substance," said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson, during a Friday news briefing to announce the confirmation of water ice.
"The truth we're looking for is not just looking at ice. It is in finding out the minerals, chemicals and hopefully the organic materials associated with these discoveries," said Smith
The mission has the right instruments for analyzing soil and ice to determine whether the local environment just below the surface of far-northern Mars has ever been favorable for microbial life. Key factors are whether the water ever becomes available as a liquid and whether organic compounds are present that could provide chemical building blocks and energy for life. Phoenix landed on May 25 for a Mars surface mission planned to last for three months.
"These latest developments are a major accomplishment and validation of the Mars Program's 'follow-the-water' exploration framework," said Doug McCuistion at NASA Headquarters, Washington, director of the space agency's Mars Program. "This specific discovery is the result of an outstanding team working with a robust spacecraft that has allowed them to work ahead of their original science schedule."
The key new evidence is that chunks of bright material exposed by digging on June 15 and still present on June 16 had vaporized by June 19. "This tells us we've got water ice within reach of the arm, which means we can continue this investigation with the tools we brought with us," said Mark Lemmon of Texas A&M University, College Station, lead scientist for Phoenix's Surface Stereo Imager camera. He said the disappearing chunks could not have been carbon-dioxide ice at the local temperatures because that material would not have been stable for even one day as a solid.
The disappearing chunks were in a trench to the northwest of the lander. A hard material, possibly more ice, but darker than the bright material in the first trench, has been detected in a second trench, to the northeast of the lander. Scientists plan next to have Phoenix collect and analyze surface soil from a third trench near the second one, and later to mechanically probe and sample the hard layer.
"We have in our ice-attack arsenal backhoeing, scraping and rasping, and we'll try all of these," said Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis, lead scientist for Phoenix's Robotic Arm.
_________________ There has never been a silence like this before
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 12:47 am Posts: 46000 Location: Reasonville
Coach wrote:
so cool that they found melting ice on Mars. This ought to lead the news, but we are more concerned with Lindsay Lohan. mmmmm
ice doesn't have d-cup breasts.
_________________ No matter how dark the storm gets overhead They say someone's watching from the calm at the edge What about us when we're down here in it? We gotta watch our backs
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 12:47 am Posts: 46000 Location: Reasonville
the reason americans may actually not care much outside of lindsay lohan's breasts is that no theory is right now coming forward with the ice found. we've found ice, OK: what does that mean?
_________________ No matter how dark the storm gets overhead They say someone's watching from the calm at the edge What about us when we're down here in it? We gotta watch our backs
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 3:04 am Posts: 12383 Gender: Male
corduroy_blazer wrote:
the reason americans may actually not care much outside of lindsay lohan's breasts is that no theory is right now coming forward with the ice found. we've found ice, OK: what does that mean?
if there's ice; there's the potential for life existing there now in the form of tiny, tiny organisms - much like the ones that exist in frozen ice deep into earth's artic. however, because of budget contraints this probe (phoenix) is not equipped to perform tests for actual living matter. generally speaking, where there's water there is life or was life.
i bet we find some kind of life on mars in the next 25 years....
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 12:47 am Posts: 46000 Location: Reasonville
Coach wrote:
corduroy_blazer wrote:
the reason americans may actually not care much outside of lindsay lohan's breasts is that no theory is right now coming forward with the ice found. we've found ice, OK: what does that mean?
if there's ice; there's the potential for life existing there now in the form of tiny, tiny organisms - much like the ones that exist in frozen ice deep into earth's artic. however, because of budget contraints this probe (phoenix) is not equipped to perform tests for actual living matter. generally speaking, where there's water there is life or was life.
i bet we find some kind of life on mars in the next 25 years....
now, life: that would be very big, i'd think.
_________________ No matter how dark the storm gets overhead They say someone's watching from the calm at the edge What about us when we're down here in it? We gotta watch our backs
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 10:57 pm Posts: 3332 Location: Chicago-ish
Coach wrote:
corduroy_blazer wrote:
the reason americans may actually not care much outside of lindsay lohan's breasts is that no theory is right now coming forward with the ice found. we've found ice, OK: what does that mean?
if there's ice; there's the potential for life existing there now in the form of tiny, tiny organisms - much like the ones that exist in frozen ice deep into earth's artic. however, because of budget contraints this probe (phoenix) is not equipped to perform tests for actual living matter. generally speaking, where there's water there is life or was life.
i bet we find some kind of life on mars in the next 25 years....
Budgets constraints? How many "folly" failures has NASA incurred recently?
But I still think it's a cool find. When they find life, then I and more people will be really interested.
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 3:04 am Posts: 12383 Gender: Male
homersheineken wrote:
Coach wrote:
corduroy_blazer wrote:
the reason americans may actually not care much outside of lindsay lohan's breasts is that no theory is right now coming forward with the ice found. we've found ice, OK: what does that mean?
if there's ice; there's the potential for life existing there now in the form of tiny, tiny organisms - much like the ones that exist in frozen ice deep into earth's artic. however, because of budget contraints this probe (phoenix) is not equipped to perform tests for actual living matter. generally speaking, where there's water there is life or was life.
i bet we find some kind of life on mars in the next 25 years....
Budgets constraints? How many "folly" failures has NASA incurred recently?
But I still think it's a cool find. When they find life, then I and more people will be really interested.
NASA didn't get enough money to create the probe with the type of expensive equipment that can detect living life, so it used "used" parts taken from other probes. Pretty interesting story on how they basically launched this thing into space and it successfully landed on Mar and it working...I think it was a lot less expensive than the other two rovers....I agree, NASA needs a "sexy" find to keep the space program going, but with enough curious people out there, like myself, I think we are in good hands.
Joined: Tue Mar 13, 2007 4:48 pm Posts: 4320 Location: Philadelphia, PA
Penguins on Mars? Phoenix chemistry set discovers that Mars's soil is like Antarctica's.
Katharine Sanderson
Phoenix's robotic scoop has snagged some surprisingly fertile soil (inset).NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Max Planck InstituteShould we be looking for penguins on Mars, rather than little green men? Just a week after finding definitive signs of water ice just beneath the surface, news of another remarkable scientific discovery has been beamed back to Earth by the Mars lander Phoenix.
This time it’s about muck. The soil under the lander was scooped up into its onboard chemistry lab just a few days ago, and subjected to a round of prodding, poking and other analysis.
And the results? Martian soil is like Antarctic soil. “This soil appears to be a close analogue to surface soils found in the upper dry valleys in Antarctica,” says Sam Kounaves of Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, leader of the 'wet chemistry' portion of the Phoenix mission.
The team hasn’t yet finished looking through the results of the analysis by the microscopy, electrochemistry and conductivity analyzer (MECA), but already MECA scientists have worked out that soil on Mars is salty and alkaline. They found traces of magnesium, sodium, potassium and chloride ions – constituents of salts. The pH of the soil taken from an inch under the surface is high – 8 or 9 — making the soil quite basic. “The alkalinity of the soil at this location is definitely striking,” says Kounaves.
Worth its salt The salts are more evidence for water on the planet, he says.
“I've come to the conclusion that the amazing thing about Mars is not that it's an alien world, but that in many aspects, like mineralogy, it's very much like Earth,” says Kounaves.
He has also been reported as saying that the soil has all the characteristics needed to support life, although there's no chance of finding anything alive there today – despite the apparently fertile soil, the planet’s atmosphere is too harsh and thin for anything to grow.
Phoenix is carrying the necessary kit to do three more chemistry tests in the remainder of its three-month mission. In the coming weeks, the lander will be busying its other instruments, including the thermal and evolved-gas analyzer (TEGA), which has been baking soil samples at 1,000 °C.
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How many "folly" failures has NASA incurred recently? 
