August 11, 2005

Holy crap! Is that pretty neato-keen or what!?
posted by mecurious 19 years ago
  • There's Martians? Let's go blow them up before they get around to thinking about us!
  • Ooooh...pretty.
  • July 28? How come this isn't all over the news? Am I missing something that would make this not-incredible?
  • last one in the pool's a dirty stinkin' martian!
  • Martian Ice Cubes!!! I'll be the first to purchase!
  • Okay, I did a google news search, and it really is all over. Smo, I agree, this is huge, and it's a shame no major news outlet's given it much time. Assholes.
  • interesting...thanks.. of course, next is
  • That was a stolen image.
  • Boom, b*tch. That's to all the doubters.
  • Aside from the location inside a crater, I'm not sure how this is a very big deal... Am I missing something?
  • It is pretty cool, though. I'm just missing the incredible part.
  • Yeah, chimaera, I was thinking the same thing, but didn't want to have to do any googling to defend it :) Basically, the polar caps are made up of both water ice and CO2 ice. I thought we've known that for decades.
  • That's a cool photo.
  • It is indeed incredible because the polar caps are not stable sources of water all year round; most of what they contain is at significant depth, because water and water ice sublimates directly into the Martian atmosphere on the surface most of the year. IIRC, this is the first absolute evidence of stable water ice on the surface, due to being situated in the crater. Basically, it makes a Martian base a definite survivor, whereas before, there was doubt as to how much/where one could get water on Mars. Unless a better source is found, this will be the site of our first proper base on Mars, I'd wager. Having said that, this was given significant coverage on the Sci news sites, but what with the war and everything, most people aren't paying attention to that shit.
  • The map showing the crater in context makes them look kind of like pimples, with the ice patch as a tiny whitehead. Maybe we could have ice-coated dune pops to celebrate the discovery.
  • I thought that more recent info showed that most of the permanent ice caps was water (with a fairly thin layer of CO2 on top, a few meters). The seasonal parts of the caps, though, are all CO2, which would make a winter excursion to the north ice cap tough to get water from. But with this crater at a (comparatively) low latitude definitely opens up possibilities for a base with easier year-round water ice access.
  • Well, it may not be that unique on Mars, but it is a lovely photo.
  • Ye can keep up with interesting discoveries/develpoments in science by clicking on the BBC Science/Nature link daily. They had this on July 29th, for exzample.
  • =example
  • Big freakin' deal. I can get all the water I want right here.
  • *pulls skis out of storage* Beautiful image. I think it is newsworthy, however, stuff like this usually gets the "look at this, AND in other news blah blah blah..." treatment. Now, if this was a giant pool of frozen residual blood for example, the media would be ALL over it!
  • Ya know, alien sacrifical blood pools and whatnot...
  • Martians got ice skates?
  • yeah...its a cool picture and all...but water near the poles (where this crater is located) is pretty useless as a fuel source (use electricity from solar panels to separate the hydrogen from the helium...burn the hydrogen in the helium...voila! rocket fuel) as launching (ie, for the return trip) from high latitutdes requires MUCH more fuel (remember, planets rotate...if you're at the equator that can add several thousand mph to your velocity...) so what we need from mars is a clear sign of water near the equator...oh look, there's one here. be sure to check out this photo of icebergs near the equator. in fact there may be plenty of ice on mars...all over the place. some recent articles i've seen suggest that mars' oceans didn't evaporate as previously thought, but instead merely froze in place and spent the last billion years (or 3) being covered by dust blown off the land...the instruments being flown on the next batch or two of orbiters (they launch for mars every 2.5 years when the alignment is right) should tell us for sure... maybe the astronauts that get to go will find some frozen whales to munch on....mmmmm...blubber...
  • separate the hydrogen from the helium Now you're just making this up, sexyrobot!
  • crap...sorry! not helium, OXYGEN! sorry!
  • *cues ELO song* ... you get too much, you get to high ...
  • Techsmith...that was sweet. No, I mean that was Sweet.