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There are areas on Mars where we strongly believe brine is right below the surface, so there could be life underground but it may not all be that deep. Edit: f

by api 1y ago

There are areas on Mars where we strongly believe brine is right below the surface, so there could be life underground but it may not all be that deep. Edit: found it: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/pia10911-ice-on-mars-now-its-gone/ https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/pia10911-ice-on-mars-now-its... There have been cases where we believe we've seen ice form in rover tracks, hinting at water just below the surface.

sheepscreek 1y ago
This is incredibly exciting! I had no idea that we have photo evidence of ice on Mars. Thank you for sharing this! Update: It’s so hard to believe that this was captured in 2008!
- njarboe 1y ago
  Liquid water below the surface is the newer interesting part. You can see Mars ice caps with a telescope from Earth.
  - somenameforme 1y ago
    I think this also derives naturally from another really interesting observation. The surface of Mars, that apparent desert, is 2%+ water by weight. [1] I say "+" because later studies have shown it to be even moister. So this is really interesting in the context of the movie/book "The Martian" because this surprise came out after the book was released. A huge part of the plot is about him getting water which he ultimately does by extracting it from fuel, but it'd have been trivial to get it from the soil itself. If you can excuse the butchery of measurements, even just the 2% level is moist enough to extract a liter of water per cubic foot of soil! For more consistent measurements, that's 35 liters of water per cubic meter of soil! I suspect when we finally get boots on the ground and can start doing real research and exploration, we're going to find more surprises than we could ever imagine. [1] - https://www.space.com/22949-mars-water-discovery-curiosity-rover.html https://www.space.com/22949-mars-water-discovery-curiosity-r...
    - api 1y ago
      We may have to decontaminate the water, which might be full of azides or other things. On the flip side those compounds may be useful for industry or fertilizer in the long term.

by api 1y ago

sheepscreek 1y ago

This is incredibly exciting! I had no idea that we have photo evidence of ice on Mars. Thank you for sharing this! Update: It’s so hard to believe that this was captured in 2008!

njarboe 1y ago
Liquid water below the surface is the newer interesting part. You can see Mars ice caps with a telescope from Earth.
- somenameforme 1y ago
  I think this also derives naturally from another really interesting observation. The surface of Mars, that apparent desert, is 2%+ water by weight. [1] I say "+" because later studies have shown it to be even moister. So this is really interesting in the context of the movie/book "The Martian" because this surprise came out after the book was released. A huge part of the plot is about him getting water which he ultimately does by extracting it from fuel, but it'd have been trivial to get it from the soil itself. If you can excuse the butchery of measurements, even just the 2% level is moist enough to extract a liter of water per cubic foot of soil! For more consistent measurements, that's 35 liters of water per cubic meter of soil! I suspect when we finally get boots on the ground and can start doing real research and exploration, we're going to find more surprises than we could ever imagine. [1] - https://www.space.com/22949-mars-water-discovery-curiosity-rover.html https://www.space.com/22949-mars-water-discovery-curiosity-r...
  - api 1y ago
    We may have to decontaminate the water, which might be full of azides or other things. On the flip side those compounds may be useful for industry or fertilizer in the long term.