8 ms·

Buried Ice Water Discovered on Mars

338 points by almost_usual 9y ago

Density 9y ago
When can i buy the raw water version of it?
gilgoomesh 9y ago
I hope so but this type of finding has been wrong before. See the recent discrediting of liquid "brines" on Mars: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019103516306029 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001910351... Until a rover or other probe tests it directly, I'll remain skeptical.
- LeifCarrotson 9y ago
  And unfortunately, these glaciers are at relatively high latitudes (50+ degrees). Cutiosity and Opportunity are near the equator.
- tinix 9y ago
  Right? In 2015, there was this: "NASA confirms the best-ever evidence for water on Mars" https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/09/28/new-evidence-of-liquid-water-on-mars-confirmed-by-nasa/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2... From your link: "This implies that RSL are not fed by large, near-subsurface aquifers, but are instead the result of either small ( < 120 km diameter) aquifers, deliquescence of perchlorate and chlorate salts or dry, granular flows." Keyword there is "granular flows" Here's another source for similar findings a few months prior. "Granular flows at recurring slope lineae on Mars indicate a limited role for liquid water" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-017-0012-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-017-0012-5 I too remain skeptical.
- djsumdog 9y ago
  Also, if this is accurate, how do we know it's water? I mean most likely it is, but is there a potential for it to be some other type of frozen liquid? Potentially a non-drinking one?
  - azernik 9y ago
    Spectroscopy.
- InclinedPlane 9y ago
  Incorrect, you're confusing different findings that are totally different areas of research merely because they have "water" in common. We have long known that there is tons of frozen water on Mars outside of the poles. Through many individual discoveries we've learned about shallow subsurface permafrost over much of Mars; we've learned of a long history of sizable quantities of liquid water on Mars; and we've learned of subsurface glaciers of very ice that are almost entirely water ice by volume. The brines research is still an open question, as in all scientific research there is a back and forth between different interpretations of the given data, it's quite possible it will ultimately not shake out as a valid interpretation (but it's also a bit much to say that the brine theory has been "discredited" merely because an argument was made against it). Regardless, the existence of subsurface glaciers, of which this is an extension of, is a far less controversial result. We know Mars has subsurface water ice, we know some of that is in the form of glaciers, these are merely certain examples of those glaciers that are significantly exposed to the surface.
daveguy 9y ago
The images are impressively detailed, but first impression is probaby. Water? How do they know from a picture of a cliff? Water has been confirmed by spectroscopy, thermal imaging and (previously) radar. From the article: "Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) confirmed that the bright material is frozen water. A check of the surface temperature using Odyssey's Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) camera helped researchers determine they're not seeing just thin frost covering the ground. Researchers previously used MRO's Shallow Radar (SHARAD) to map extensive underground water-ice sheets in middle latitudes of Mars and estimate that the top of the ice is less than about 10 yards beneath the ground surface."
- kurthr 9y ago
  I agree, the SHARAD work was amazing to use mixed mode Radar to image the subsurface ice tomographically (by reconstructing synthetic aperture radar from multiple passes of 2? different radar frequencies from many orbits with limited antenna time). This is really the first time frozen water (not just frost) has been SEEN with an imaging spectrometer!
ChuckMcM 9y ago
In general this is pretty awesome. What we now know are: 1) Earth microbes and soil organisms (worms) can live in hydrated martian soil. (https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/11/mars-soil-earthworm-agriculture-science-spd/ https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/11/mars-soil-earthw...) 2) Food plants can grow in martian soil that has had said organisms added to it.(https://www.nasa.gov/feature/farming-in-martian-gardens https://www.nasa.gov/feature/farming-in-martian-gardens) 3) The water to hydrate the soil is already on Mars.(this article) 4) We can build an artificial magnetosphere[1] to protect an area from solar radiation. So one trip to Mars that can land a small (< 100kW) power plant, organic amendments, tools, and material for a pressurized green house will be able to create a 'farm' on Mars. That is pretty neat. [1] They designed it for spacecraft propulsion but it has the effect of a shield if installed in a ground station. http://earthweb.ess.washington.edu/space/M2P2/theory.html http://earthweb.ess.washington.edu/space/M2P2/theory.html
- justinjlynn 9y ago
  That is indeed awesome but I would argue that it also means we would need to undertake a much more thorough search to find out of mars is indeed a dead planet. Once we land a large concentration of biological matter there -- we won't have an opportunity to look again without dealing with massive potential for cross-planetary contamination. Of course, it's a trade off and it's great news if we ever had to undertake a crash program to get at least a few humans and/or earth originated genetic material off planet with any hope of it surviving without extensive terraforming.
  - ianai 9y ago
    It might not be quite as bad as you think. I imagine Martian farmers would be doing something like hydroponics. The soil and water might come from mars but the actual plants grow in tiny, isolated compartments within buildings. I doubt the resource scarcity would allow for anything resembling a more traditional farm.
    - Terr_ 9y ago
      It's relatively easy to keep macroscopic plants from escaping, the real issue is the smaller stuff like bacteria, which will get everywhere no matter what kind of farm you're running.
everdev 9y ago
Would this water be drinkable if we inhabit Mars?
- azernik 9y ago
  Maybe not directly - who knows what's dissolved in there.
  - aaomidi 9y ago
    Yeah but it wouldn't be that hard to seperate the water.
- thedirt0115 9y ago
  What it would take to drink water on Mars -- https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/drink-water-mars_us_5611efd2e4b0af3706e13449 https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/drink-water-mars_us_561...
- allemagne 9y ago
  A co-author seems to think so: >The new study ... identifies eight sites where ice is directly accessible, at latitudes with less hostile conditions than at Mars' polar ice caps. "Astronauts could essentially just go there with a bucket and a shovel and get all the water they need," Byrne said.
- outworlder 9y ago
  Nothing that our filters cannot solve. Worst case we distill it and add some minerals back.
dgudkov 9y ago
Apparently, the first resource to be mined on Mars will be water ice.
- Edmond 9y ago
  We'll have people living in the "belts" working as ice haulers :) There is a great show called "The Expanse" that touches on this.
  - bestest 9y ago
    The book (or rather books) is even better!
    - King-Aaron 9y ago
      Upvoting both of you for referencing The Expanse (And the books, i.e Leviathan Wakes)... It's so good to see something that resembles hard-sci-fi on television.
      - ant6n 9y ago
        The Expanse does resemble hard sci-fi. But besides the issue of gravity, its especially the issue of water (ice) where they seem to deviate from reality. Basically Ceres is made out of ice - why would they need ice haulers to bring ice there; how could there possibly be a water shortage?
        will_hughes 9y ago
        This is already covered in the book. The water ice on Ceres had already been used up in the colonisation efforts of Earth and then later: Mars.
mncharity 9y ago
The original title is "Steep Slopes on Mars Reveal Structure of Buried Ice". The HN title "Buried Ice Water Discovered on Mars" is misleading - we've known about large midlatitude underground ice deposits for some years now.
- mirimir 9y ago
  Right. "Ice water" makes no sense. If anything, "water ice': > The ice was likely deposited as snow long ago. The deposits are exposed in cross section as relatively pure water ice, capped by a layer one to two yards (or meters) thick of ice-cemented rock and dust.
  - larrymcp 9y ago
    Right, exactly. The article does contain the phrase "water ice" a few times. "Ice water" would be something that is served in the restaurants on Mars.
yazaddaruvala 9y ago
I really wish NASA made the joke, "it feels like we knew nothing about Mars? and all of a sudden we achieved Total Recall!!!"
akasian 9y ago
Start the reactor. Free Mars.
- djsumdog 9y ago
  I swear I saw Hiroko.
jv22222 9y ago
> "Astronauts could essentially just go there with a bucket and a shovel and get all the water they need," That's so awesome.
otempomores 9y ago
Great now we can mess up on another planet. Time to invent campaign slogan. They thought they could leave it all behind. Be better than that. Donate for somalia in the sky.
rubrick85 9y ago
That looks like the Estonian flag. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Estonia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Estonia

338 points by almost_usual 9y ago

When can i buy the raw water version of it?

I hope so but this type of finding has been wrong before. See the recent discrediting of liquid "brines" on Mars: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019103516306029 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001910351... Until a rover or other probe tests it directly, I'll remain skeptical.

LeifCarrotson 9y ago
And unfortunately, these glaciers are at relatively high latitudes (50+ degrees). Cutiosity and Opportunity are near the equator.
tinix 9y ago
Right? In 2015, there was this: "NASA confirms the best-ever evidence for water on Mars" https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/09/28/new-evidence-of-liquid-water-on-mars-confirmed-by-nasa/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2... From your link: "This implies that RSL are not fed by large, near-subsurface aquifers, but are instead the result of either small ( < 120 km diameter) aquifers, deliquescence of perchlorate and chlorate salts or dry, granular flows." Keyword there is "granular flows" Here's another source for similar findings a few months prior. "Granular flows at recurring slope lineae on Mars indicate a limited role for liquid water" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-017-0012-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-017-0012-5 I too remain skeptical.
djsumdog 9y ago
Also, if this is accurate, how do we know it's water? I mean most likely it is, but is there a potential for it to be some other type of frozen liquid? Potentially a non-drinking one?
- azernik 9y ago
  Spectroscopy.
InclinedPlane 9y ago
Incorrect, you're confusing different findings that are totally different areas of research merely because they have "water" in common. We have long known that there is tons of frozen water on Mars outside of the poles. Through many individual discoveries we've learned about shallow subsurface permafrost over much of Mars; we've learned of a long history of sizable quantities of liquid water on Mars; and we've learned of subsurface glaciers of very ice that are almost entirely water ice by volume. The brines research is still an open question, as in all scientific research there is a back and forth between different interpretations of the given data, it's quite possible it will ultimately not shake out as a valid interpretation (but it's also a bit much to say that the brine theory has been "discredited" merely because an argument was made against it). Regardless, the existence of subsurface glaciers, of which this is an extension of, is a far less controversial result. We know Mars has subsurface water ice, we know some of that is in the form of glaciers, these are merely certain examples of those glaciers that are significantly exposed to the surface.

daveguy 9y ago

The images are impressively detailed, but first impression is probaby. Water? How do they know from a picture of a cliff? Water has been confirmed by spectroscopy, thermal imaging and (previously) radar. From the article: "Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) confirmed that the bright material is frozen water. A check of the surface temperature using Odyssey's Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) camera helped researchers determine they're not seeing just thin frost covering the ground. Researchers previously used MRO's Shallow Radar (SHARAD) to map extensive underground water-ice sheets in middle latitudes of Mars and estimate that the top of the ice is less than about 10 yards beneath the ground surface."

kurthr 9y ago
I agree, the SHARAD work was amazing to use mixed mode Radar to image the subsurface ice tomographically (by reconstructing synthetic aperture radar from multiple passes of 2? different radar frequencies from many orbits with limited antenna time). This is really the first time frozen water (not just frost) has been SEEN with an imaging spectrometer!

ChuckMcM 9y ago

In general this is pretty awesome. What we now know are: 1) Earth microbes and soil organisms (worms) can live in hydrated martian soil. (https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/11/mars-soil-earthworm-agriculture-science-spd/ https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/11/mars-soil-earthw...) 2) Food plants can grow in martian soil that has had said organisms added to it.(https://www.nasa.gov/feature/farming-in-martian-gardens https://www.nasa.gov/feature/farming-in-martian-gardens) 3) The water to hydrate the soil is already on Mars.(this article) 4) We can build an artificial magnetosphere[1] to protect an area from solar radiation. So one trip to Mars that can land a small (< 100kW) power plant, organic amendments, tools, and material for a pressurized green house will be able to create a 'farm' on Mars. That is pretty neat. [1] They designed it for spacecraft propulsion but it has the effect of a shield if installed in a ground station. http://earthweb.ess.washington.edu/space/M2P2/theory.html http://earthweb.ess.washington.edu/space/M2P2/theory.html

justinjlynn 9y ago
That is indeed awesome but I would argue that it also means we would need to undertake a much more thorough search to find out of mars is indeed a dead planet. Once we land a large concentration of biological matter there -- we won't have an opportunity to look again without dealing with massive potential for cross-planetary contamination. Of course, it's a trade off and it's great news if we ever had to undertake a crash program to get at least a few humans and/or earth originated genetic material off planet with any hope of it surviving without extensive terraforming.
- ianai 9y ago
  It might not be quite as bad as you think. I imagine Martian farmers would be doing something like hydroponics. The soil and water might come from mars but the actual plants grow in tiny, isolated compartments within buildings. I doubt the resource scarcity would allow for anything resembling a more traditional farm.
  - Terr_ 9y ago
    It's relatively easy to keep macroscopic plants from escaping, the real issue is the smaller stuff like bacteria, which will get everywhere no matter what kind of farm you're running.

everdev 9y ago

Would this water be drinkable if we inhabit Mars?

azernik 9y ago
Maybe not directly - who knows what's dissolved in there.
- aaomidi 9y ago
  Yeah but it wouldn't be that hard to seperate the water.
thedirt0115 9y ago
What it would take to drink water on Mars -- https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/drink-water-mars_us_5611efd2e4b0af3706e13449 https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/drink-water-mars_us_561...
allemagne 9y ago
A co-author seems to think so: >The new study ... identifies eight sites where ice is directly accessible, at latitudes with less hostile conditions than at Mars' polar ice caps. "Astronauts could essentially just go there with a bucket and a shovel and get all the water they need," Byrne said.
outworlder 9y ago
Nothing that our filters cannot solve. Worst case we distill it and add some minerals back.

dgudkov 9y ago

Apparently, the first resource to be mined on Mars will be water ice.

Edmond 9y ago
We'll have people living in the "belts" working as ice haulers :) There is a great show called "The Expanse" that touches on this.
- bestest 9y ago
  The book (or rather books) is even better!
  - King-Aaron 9y ago
    Upvoting both of you for referencing The Expanse (And the books, i.e Leviathan Wakes)... It's so good to see something that resembles hard-sci-fi on television.
    - ant6n 9y ago
      The Expanse does resemble hard sci-fi. But besides the issue of gravity, its especially the issue of water (ice) where they seem to deviate from reality. Basically Ceres is made out of ice - why would they need ice haulers to bring ice there; how could there possibly be a water shortage?
      - will_hughes 9y ago
        This is already covered in the book. The water ice on Ceres had already been used up in the colonisation efforts of Earth and then later: Mars.

mncharity 9y ago

The original title is "Steep Slopes on Mars Reveal Structure of Buried Ice". The HN title "Buried Ice Water Discovered on Mars" is misleading - we've known about large midlatitude underground ice deposits for some years now.

mirimir 9y ago
Right. "Ice water" makes no sense. If anything, "water ice': > The ice was likely deposited as snow long ago. The deposits are exposed in cross section as relatively pure water ice, capped by a layer one to two yards (or meters) thick of ice-cemented rock and dust.
- larrymcp 9y ago
  Right, exactly. The article does contain the phrase "water ice" a few times. "Ice water" would be something that is served in the restaurants on Mars.

yazaddaruvala 9y ago

I really wish NASA made the joke, "it feels like we knew nothing about Mars? and all of a sudden we achieved Total Recall!!!"

akasian 9y ago

Start the reactor. Free Mars.

djsumdog 9y ago
I swear I saw Hiroko.

jv22222 9y ago

> "Astronauts could essentially just go there with a bucket and a shovel and get all the water they need," That's so awesome.

otempomores 9y ago

Great now we can mess up on another planet. Time to invent campaign slogan. They thought they could leave it all behind. Be better than that. Donate for somalia in the sky.

rubrick85 9y ago

That looks like the Estonian flag. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Estonia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Estonia