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Farren

#21 June 21, 2008, 07:54:32 pm

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no I guess it doesn't

I didn't think about that though, figured that it would be ice in liquid form and not gaseous and hopefully it isn't because that would suck.

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Terin

#22 June 22, 2008, 03:59:20 am

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Very simply it could be a solid form of any gas.

Hopefully it is actually water-water. If it is, then it'll lead to easier colonization by us. If not, then we'll have something new to study (and who's to say that life can't live off of a liquid methane or something -- not SUPER likely, but... who knows?). We'll find a lot more stuff out as we keep learning/studying/experimenting/exploring!

--Terin

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datamanc3r

#23 June 22, 2008, 06:21:00 am

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It's better if they don't find life at all. That way, we could probably fuck around with the planet itself (damn environmentalists couldn't do a thing). With all that CO2, we could plant some trees. Well, probably not because of the obscene temperatures.

I wonder if there's a way to mechanically engineer oxygen from carbon dioxide. We could shoot huge-ass monoliths into mars that could do this. It'd be pretty cool if we could. Then there's got to be a way to transport hydrogen up there (is there enough?) so that we could make some water ourselves.

Wait fuck we can probably MAKE hydrogen because it doesn't have many electrons. Hm..

"I would be totally embarassed to write this, even as a fakepost. it's not funny except in how you seem to think it's good. look at all the redundancies, for fuck's sake. "insipid semantics, despicable mediocrity" ugh gross gross. I want to take a shower every time I read your prose." -Steel

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crone_lover720

#24 June 22, 2008, 07:11:52 am

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the question is, what would sublimate at mars' temperature?? of course there's no information on this in the article, but I assume there's a little credibility to the claim that it could be ice

Quote from: The Truth on June 21, 2008, 05:11:12 am

this

the frozen caps aren't even ice from my understanding

yeah I'm pretty sure they aren't, that's what I've always heard/why this would be a significant discovery

Quote from: Harry Manback on June 21, 2008, 06:20:35 pm

I thought in order for something to freeze it had to have at least a little water in it right? Or am I wrong because I don't know anything about space shit.

And I know that EVERYTHING is supposed to have a freezing and boiling temp but I thought it had to at least have a minuscule bit of water in order to do so.

nope

eg elements are pure (no water)

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Ryan

#25 June 22, 2008, 01:12:59 pm

thx ds k?
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/2008/06/22/scinasa122.xml

well, according to this there is water on mars!

it's kind of early and i'm tired, but i searched around and tons of sources say there is water on mars, however few give very many specifics or how they know that.

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Jayce

#26 June 22, 2008, 02:09:51 pm

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In theory mars could be in its "ice age", suggesting that perhaps it too was once like earth...
But hey, until large expanses of frozen water are found (ie: an OCEAN under the dust), trace amounts aren't really that great of a discovery, considering what I mentioned earlier...

Also Ryan: I want Dapp...

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Lord Kamina

#27 June 22, 2008, 02:56:18 pm

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Quote from: YourHero on June 20, 2008, 08:20:58 pm

YESSSSS now we can go start colonies there!

Actually Mars is a really shitty place to colonize... It has nothing going for it aside from distance, which admittedly is pretty important at this point.

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datamanc3r

#28 June 22, 2008, 06:11:17 pm

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Apparently ice can sublimate at around 15 degrees Celsius if the air is dry enough. And I'd imagine that mars' air is pretty dry.

http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/watercyclesublimation.html

But then again, mars gets pretty cold at night, and perhaps the air turned into ice (deposition). Shortly afterward, a dust storm could have kicked in and buried it. Could have been dry ice. But then again, you'd think that dry ice wouldn't last that long out in a mars day -- it would have sublimated far more quickly than water. I wish we had more information, like the time it took for this material to fully sublimate, as well as the sublimation temperatures of carbon dioxide and water. Also, temperature of mars would be pretty good.

Interesting @ Ryan's article.
"The chunks of bright white ice were exposed on June 15 but by June 19 they had begun to vaporise." That's a pretty long time. Is mars actually cold?

EDIT: Oh hey! ice @ caps.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/02/0213_030213_marspoles.html

Last Edit: June 23, 2008, 12:01:39 am by Juris

"I would be totally embarassed to write this, even as a fakepost. it's not funny except in how you seem to think it's good. look at all the redundancies, for fuck's sake. "insipid semantics, despicable mediocrity" ugh gross gross. I want to take a shower every time I read your prose." -Steel

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Terin

#29 June 22, 2008, 06:41:20 pm

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Quote from: Lord Kamina on June 22, 2008, 02:56:18 pm

Actually Mars is a really shitty place to colonize... It has nothing going for it aside from distance, which admittedly is pretty important at this point.

This is by far the most ignorant comment I've read. One of my Astrophysics professors in college was working with Nasa on plans to do terraformation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_terraformation

But basically in a nutshell:

Mars has ice on the caps. That's known. What we could do is put algae on the ice caps, which would start to take the water/ice and decompose it into an atmosphere. As that's going on, the atmosphere is forming, the ice will also melt and make some parts of Mars fertile enough for trees. Even if not, get something that requires little water (i.e. cactus/weeds) and plant them so that they can start converting CO2 -> breathable air. If we sent algae today, it'd take about 500 years for Mars to be inhabitable and breathable without needing anything. Today, we could technically be on the surface with an oxygen mask if we were in one of the gorges, so we'd be shielded from UV rays.

Mind you, this is HIS theory and mostly hearsay. The article talks about actually making more use of CO2 -- which also makes a lot of sense.

--Terin

Last Edit: June 22, 2008, 06:43:18 pm by Terin

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alfungo

#30 June 22, 2008, 06:54:35 pm

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Mars is too small to keep a strong enough atmosphere for anything more than the simplest introduced life. Also it's not as well protected as Earth magnetically so solar winds and lesser gravity would mean always fighting a losing battle. The pressure is so low in comparison with earth, instantly lethal to living tissue, plus it's distance is another problem in terms of climate.
It would always be more trouble than it's worth attempting anything approaching terraforming. If that's even possible.

However, I've been following the Phoenix mission closely, because it is quite exciting for me. I'd like to see a base there eventually and any signs of life would be very important if discovered. Especially when you think that we have no reason to believe that life exists anywhere else in the universe.
If you do believe that, then it's more like religion because it needs faith! SO DON'T GO BASHING RELIGIOUS MANS! Of course, any discovery would give us good ammunition against religion (though they's probably worm their way around that one too).

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Frisky SKeleton

#31 June 22, 2008, 10:31:13 pm

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this is pretty cool but before we colonise mars i'd like to see a moon base. just a small one so we can say we did.

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Dale Gobbler

#32 June 23, 2008, 12:55:28 am

Meh.
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I want to know what would happen if they found "life" on Mars. What effect would that discovery have on the scientific community and the public? If there's life on Mars, then that means Earth isn't that unique, and there could be aliens on other planets, etc.

m
o hap

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Ryan

#33 June 23, 2008, 01:19:46 am

thx ds k?
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Quote from: Terin on June 22, 2008, 06:41:20 pm

This is by far the most ignorant comment I've read. One of my Astrophysics professors in college was working with Nasa on plans to do terraformation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_terraformation

But basically in a nutshell:

Mars has ice on the caps. That's known. What we could do is put algae on the ice caps, which would start to take the water/ice and decompose it into an atmosphere. As that's going on, the atmosphere is forming, the ice will also melt and make some parts of Mars fertile enough for trees. Even if not, get something that requires little water (i.e. cactus/weeds) and plant them so that they can start converting CO2 -> breathable air. If we sent algae today, it'd take about 500 years for Mars to be inhabitable and breathable without needing anything. Today, we could technically be on the surface with an oxygen mask if we were in one of the gorges, so we'd be shielded from UV rays.

Mind you, this is HIS theory and mostly hearsay. The article talks about actually making more use of CO2 -- which also makes a lot of sense.

--Terin

i find terraforming hugely interesting. the only problem with terraforming Mars I believe is the lack of a strong magnetosphere.

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Kaempfer

#34 June 23, 2008, 01:54:13 am

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Those images of Mars turning into a habitable world are pretty awesome, and they really make me wonder what it would look like if a reverse process happened on Earth (all the plants dying and the water freezing into gorges near the poles) and what the surface of the Earth would look like all rusty. I bet there'd be some pretty awesome impact craters under the sea!

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Doktormartini

#35 June 23, 2008, 09:10:04 pm

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I said this in another topic like years ago regarding this subject and someone agreed with me. Everyone says you need water for life, but how do we know that there aren't some sort of space creatures that do not require water to survive?

Dok Choy

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Damug

#36 June 23, 2008, 09:15:05 pm

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The idea of even the slight possibility of life (even smaller forms) exisitng outside our planets just boggles my mind. Just to imagine that maybe one day we could move outside of earth for a chance at intergalactic living.

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Kaworu

#37 June 23, 2008, 09:27:20 pm

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I'm a big follower of potential extraterrestrial life, Mars is generally seen as dead, but other solar bodies such as Europa and Titan[/url are seen as the most likely candidates. But the continued interest in Mars is really great and I'm loving that we're having a rush for Mars similar to that of the space-race aimed for the moon.
Yeah finding ice on Mars is regardless a pretty big thing because it's confirmed and we can kinda assume Mars could possibly have some bacterial lifeforms. Which is science-shatteringly important to find out, and I hope next year's space mission (Mars Science Laboratory) brings us closer.

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YourHero

#38 June 24, 2008, 07:17:30 pm

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before we consider LIVING on mars... maybe we should look into GETTING to mars....

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Kaworu

#39 June 27, 2008, 05:41:08 pm

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7477310.stm

Fuck man I really REALLY hope they put some asparagus seeds in the next lander. Like jesus without natural competition and Mars' winds that shit could grow like wildfire.

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Ryan

#40 June 27, 2008, 05:43:41 pm

thx ds k?
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Quote from: The Octave Doctor on June 27, 2008, 05:41:08 pm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7477310.stm

Fuck man I really REALLY hope they put some asparagus seeds in the next lander. Like jesus without natural competition and Mars' winds that shit could grow like wildfire.

yeah, but they won't. mainly because it would contaminate the Martian soil. they want to be sure they have thoroughly scanned it for it's own potential life before adding Earth's!

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