Friday, June 20, 2008 | Reason : In the News | print version

Bright Chunks At Phoenix Lander's Mars Site Must Have Been Ice

by NASA

Thanks to FightingFalcon for the link.

http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/06_19_pr.php

Bright Chunks At Phoenix Lander's Mars Site Must Have Been Ice

June 19, 2008 -- Dice-size crumbs of bright material have vanished from inside a trench where they were photographed by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander four days ago, convincing scientists that the material was frozen water that vaporized after digging exposed it.

image description

"It must be ice," said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson. "These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it's ice. There had been some question whether the bright material was salt. Salt can't do that."

The chunks were left at the bottom of a trench informally called "Dodo-Goldilocks" when Phoenix's Robotic Arm enlarged that trench on June 15, during the 20th Martian day, or sol, since landing. Several were gone when Phoenix looked at the trench early today, on Sol 24.

Also early today, digging in a different trench, the Robotic Arm connected with a hard surface that has scientists excited about the prospect of next uncovering an icy layer.

The Phoenix science team spent Thursday analyzing new images and data successfully returned from the lander earlier in the day.

Studying the initial findings from the new "Snow White 2" trench, located to the right of "Snow White 1," Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis, co-investigator for the robotic arm, said, "We have dug a trench and uncovered a hard layer at the same depth as the ice layer in our other trench."

On Sol 24, Phoenix extended the first trench in the middle of a polygon at the "Wonderland" site. While digging, the Robotic Arm came upon a firm layer, and after three attempts to dig further, the arm went into a holding position. Such an action is expected when the Robotic Arm comes upon a hard surface.

Meanwhile, the spacecraft team at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver is preparing a software patch to send to Phoenix in a few days so scientific data can again be saved onboard overnight when needed. Because of a large amount a duplicative file-maintenance data generated by the spacecraft Tuesday, the team is taking the precaution of not storing science data in Phoenix's flash memory, and instead downlinking it at the end of every day, until the conditions that produced those duplicative data files are corrected.

"We now understand what happened, and we can fix it with a software patch," said Phoenix Project Manager Barry Goldstein of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena. "Our three-month schedule has 30 days of margin for contingencies like this, and we have used only one contingency day out of 24 sols. The mission is well ahead of schedule. We are making excellent progress toward full mission success."

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1. Comment #196674 by FightingFalcon on June 20, 2008 at 10:19 am

w00t first post and provided the link =)

O yea....the ice on Mars is pretty cool too :)

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2. Comment #196680 by Cartomancer on June 20, 2008 at 10:24 am

Bush was hoping for oil I suspect...

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3. Comment #196683 by FightingFalcon on June 20, 2008 at 10:30 am

Cartomancer - while your post was obviously sarcastic, do you know how awesome it would be if we found oil on Mars?

That would mean there are dead dinos on another planet!!

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4. Comment #196690 by 35bluejacket on June 20, 2008 at 10:40 am

God please...let them find a bone. Any kind of bone

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5. Comment #196703 by scottishgeologist on June 20, 2008 at 10:57 am

Its great to read stories like this - stuff that is at the cutting edge of science and knowledge. Real frontier stuff instead of that backwards looking death-wish crap that these religites keep coming out with.

I am old enough to remember growing up in the late 60s early 70s when the Moon missions were happening. What an exciting time for a child with an interest in science that was! All played out of course against a backdrop of Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and classic era Dr Who!

We need more of these stories!

:-)
SG

Other Comments by scottishgeologist

6. Comment #196710 by BicycleRepairMan on June 20, 2008 at 11:09 am

That picture is awesome, it looks like a regular dug hole, but its dug on another fuckin WORLD!, thats amazing. We dug a hole on a world noone has ever been too.

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7. Comment #196713 by Vaal on June 20, 2008 at 11:13 am

4. Comment #196690 by 35bluejacket

God please...let them find a bone. Any kind of bone

Would have been put there by Satan of course!

Other Comments by Vaal

8. Comment #196714 by Tezcatlipoca on June 20, 2008 at 11:13 am

BRM- It's all a big soundstage...haven't you seen Capricorn 1... ;p

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9. Comment #196718 by Vaal on June 20, 2008 at 11:21 am

5. Comment #196703 by scottishgeologist

am old enough to remember growing up in the late 60s early 70s when the Moon missions were happening. What an exciting time for a child with an interest in science that was!

Me too. I remember the first Mariner probes going past Mars, and how disappointed the astronomers were. Also, when Viking first landed. Awesome!

Now, we can just look at pictures taken of Mars and Saturn on the Internet every day, images that you could hardly have conceived of, and just take it for granted. What a wonderful time to be alive!

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10. Comment #196759 by sophia_mr on June 20, 2008 at 12:15 pm

lovin' it.

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11. Comment #196767 by HourglassMemory on June 20, 2008 at 12:21 pm

Now pick that up and analyze that. That! Right there! The melting ice!
Melt it in the ovens!
It would be amazing if they found something!

I'm almost everyday checking their website for news.
My dad sometimes asks me "How's the Phoenix thing going?"

Other Comments by HourglassMemory

12. Comment #196801 by Stafford Gordon on June 20, 2008 at 12:58 pm

The astronomer Patrick Moore was a teacher at my school when I was about ten years old. He would talk with great enthusiasm about Pluto and Mars in particular I recall.

Now, I've just looked at the surface of Mars.

Wonderful!

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13. Comment #196812 by shemp333 on June 20, 2008 at 1:05 pm

Now we have a job to do. We have to find out how to resurrect Carl Sagan. He worked on the early Viking missions to Mars, and he has GOT to see this!

Miss you, Carl.

Other Comments by shemp333

14. Comment #196821 by esuther on June 20, 2008 at 1:13 pm

I swear to Darwin it looks JUST like a tire mark on dirty snow. You know, like it just stopped snowing about an hour ago but dust settled on it and then a car ran over it and smeared it but exposed some of the clean snow beneath.
You just want to reach out and scrape it up with your mitten.
I'm also old enough to remember when Mars was just a red star in the sky about which we knew almost nothing.

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15. Comment #196841 by ttheobald on June 20, 2008 at 1:30 pm

Silly scientists, those rocks didn't evaporate, God picked them up and took them away to confuse you!

T

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16. Comment #196866 by robotaholic on June 20, 2008 at 2:10 pm

cant' we just study the spectrum of the light reflected off those icy looking places and determine with accuracy if that's water or not? -

It's possible that that robot footprint will be there for billions of years. Robots

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17. Comment #196911 by tahustvedt on June 20, 2008 at 3:21 pm

I like the names they come up with for parts of those tiny areas of the patch of land where they dig. Cheshire Cat, Wonderland, Snow White Trench, Croquet Ground. :)

If it's not water ice, what is it? Carbon dioxide ice?

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18. Comment #196914 by Pattern Seeker on June 20, 2008 at 3:24 pm

If there had been "dark chunks" at the lander site would that have been 'Space Vomit?'

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19. Comment #196932 by sent2null on June 20, 2008 at 3:50 pm

Re: Comment #196683 by FightingFalcon

Channeling MPhil for a bit here (MPhil you know we lubs ya!) and exercising an element of pedantry with regard to your comment.

That would mean there are dead dinos on another planet!!

Oil is what you get when you subject dead sea life (plankton and other ocean critters mostly) to intense pressures and millions of years of sedimentation just off the oceanic coasts. However, during the time (the Carboniferous) that the layers we call oil are dated to, there were no Dinosaurs! (That age predates the first Dinosaurs by about 100 million years)

FYI

(Of course it would still mean living things once died and were pressurized if we were to find any oil on Mars..so your point is valid, if factually skewed. ;) )

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20. Comment #196937 by sent2null on June 20, 2008 at 4:03 pm

Re: comment 196718 by Vaal

Now, we can just look at pictures taken of Mars and Saturn on the Internet every day, images that you could hardly have conceived of, and just take it for granted. What a wonderful time to be alive!

I agree it is a great time to be alive, though I go one step beyond just looking at those amazing images. I've been collecting the very highest resolution images from the Hubble Space Telescope for the last few years. At a cost of several billion dollars of our taxes I sure have every right! Of course my reasons are simply to satisfy the intense love of astronomical imagery I've always had since I was a boy. There are some equally high resolution and eerie images of various vistas on Mars taken by Spirit and Opportunity available at the NASA web site. I have downloaded many of these as well. I've printed out a few of the Hubble images to huge sizes (20" x 30") and well, let us just say my eyes watered when I was looking at the Sombrero Galaxy M104 in its spectacular detailed glory.

http://hubblesite.org/

http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/entire_collection/pr2003028a/

(11472 x 6429) 73megapixels of glory!

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21. Comment #196939 by scottishgeologist on June 20, 2008 at 4:13 pm

sent2null (and other interested astronomers!) Sorry if you already know of this one, but there are some excellent pictures on Jerry Lodrigus' site www.astropix.com Jerry must be one of Americas leading astrophotographers - his pictures are stunning.

Well worth a look!

:-)
SG

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22. Comment #196944 by 35bluejacket on June 20, 2008 at 4:27 pm

That looks like Alaska permafrost, minus the lichen.

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23. Comment #196955 by Don_Quix on June 20, 2008 at 5:05 pm

It's about the same temperature as Alaska too ;)

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24. Comment #196956 by mordacious1 on June 20, 2008 at 5:13 pm

Sent2null

About a decade ago, a geologist was pushing the theory that the earth was formed with the oil already there, like iron, etc. He said it wasn't decayed anything. I thought it was BS at the time but a lot of people took him seriously. Ever hear of this?

Probably a cretinist trying to disprove dinos ever existed. Who knows?

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25. Comment #196965 by sent2null on June 20, 2008 at 6:18 pm

a geologist was pushing the theory that the earth was formed with the oil already there, like iron, etc. He said it wasn't decayed anything. I thought it was BS at the time but a lot of people took him seriously. Ever hear of this?

I just read about it actually, after consulting the wikipedia page for petroleum. It mentions the theory of abiogenesis as a source of petroleum but mentions it only has a minority of proponent geologists in the west. The article below mentions The widely held consensus by geologists is the biogenic cause.

See:

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

A critical quote:

There is no direct evidence to date of abiogenic petroleum (liquid crude oil and long-chain hydrocarbon compounds)

though the article goes on to cite pros and cons to the theory.

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26. Comment #196974 by mordacious1 on June 20, 2008 at 7:23 pm

Sent2Null

Thomas Gold, that's the guy. I guess I could of looked that up myself, but thanks. I didn't realize he was reviving a much older theory by the Russians. It did get alot of attention at the time though, and it seems the Russians still give it credence.

edit: I remember Gold saying that there could be oil on other planets and moons, without ever having life. This was his main point.

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27. Comment #196989 by adk on June 20, 2008 at 8:53 pm

Comment #196939 by scottishgeologist:

some excellent pictures on Jerry Lodrigus' site www.astropix.com

WOW! Thanks a lot, amazing photos!!

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28. Comment #196998 by FightingFalcon on June 20, 2008 at 10:52 pm

Oil is what you get when you subject dead sea life (plankton and other ocean critters mostly) to intense pressures and millions of years of sedimentation just off the oceanic coasts. However, during the time (the Carboniferous) that the layers we call oil are dated to, there were no Dinosaurs! (That age predates the first Dinosaurs by about 100 million years)

Now wait a second - when I was in 1st grade I was told that fossil fuels came from dead dinosaurs and I'm stickin to that story =)

Really? So no dead dinos? Damn...I liked thinking that my car was powered by a T-rex

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29. Comment #196999 by mmurray on June 20, 2008 at 11:05 pm

The Phoenix site has some nice colour pictures of the disappearing ice-cubes.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/main/

Michael

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30. Comment #197060 by Clapton_is_God on June 21, 2008 at 2:36 am

I know the Americans have an obsession with ice but little did I believe that they would go hundreds of millions of miles to get it! :)

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31. Comment #197062 by King of NH on June 21, 2008 at 2:43 am

I can't wait to be able to buy my first bottle of Martian Spring Water. Mmmmm, gooey.

Seriously, though. This is awesome. Water ice on another planet! Now why would Jesus have done that?

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32. Comment #197104 by Stephen Maxwell on June 21, 2008 at 5:36 am

But surely this ice is irreducibly complex?

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33. Comment #197148 by moderndaythomas on June 21, 2008 at 8:18 am

I can't imagine what the creationist points would be like if life were to be found in the soil of Mars.

Would it have DNA? or another self replicating molecule?
Would it have a nucleus?
Would there be common descent? and how far back would that common ancestor be?

The hair on my arms raises just thinking about it. Nothing that would come close to such a discovery.

I'm holding my breath.

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34. Comment #197163 by scottishgeologist on June 21, 2008 at 9:03 am

This is the sort of story that for me anyway, sends a real thrill.

Compare and contrast this story right now with the other items here - all the f*cktardery associated with religion. Most of it anti-science

There are times when I am tempted to go along with the line of "F*** religion, just ignore it, give it no "oxygen of publicity" whatsoever. Its beneath contempt, so just dismiss it as childish crap"

trouble is, as we can see from other stories, it *IS* a real threat so we cant really ignore it.

I long for the day when I can logon to this site and find nothing but story after story of illuminating scientific research, discovery and adventure - the sort of stories like this one that produce a sense of awe at the universe.

Of course, that is the cue for some f*cktard to come along and say "isnt god wonderful......"

I live in hope

:-)
SG

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35. Comment #197178 by catskill on June 21, 2008 at 9:41 am

I am amazed by Phoenix. I watched the launch live on the web. I also watched the landing live on the web. That was particularly awesome. They were calling out the altitude... 100 meters... 75 meters... 50 meters... so cool!

What I don't understand is the excitement over the ice. Is the excitement due to the fact that it is within reach of the lander? Because there is a massive polar ice cap to the North of the lander site. They say its water ice, but Mars scientists have been saying for some time now that the ice caps are both CO2 and water ice in composition. So how do they even know its water ice and not CO2 ice? Regardless, we KNOW there is ice on Mars. Show me the fossilized bacteria then we got somethin'!

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36. Comment #197252 by tahustvedt on June 21, 2008 at 1:02 pm

I thought the idea was that the polar ice caps are mostly frozen CO2 (hence no liquid as they melt), and that water ice might be found under the ground.

I don't really know what I'm talking about though. lol

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37. Comment #197521 by catskill on June 22, 2008 at 9:34 am

Wired.com just answered my question with an article titled "How do you know its water?"

Basically it says that its Martian summer where the lander is now and the temperatures are too warm for CO2 ice but cold enough for H2O ice.

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38. Comment #197526 by MAVERICKMAN on June 22, 2008 at 9:45 am

I thought the idea was that the polar ice caps are mostly frozen CO2 (hence no liquid as they melt), and that water ice might be found under the ground.

The process you're thinking of is called sublimation -- transition from the solid to gas phase with no intermediate liquid stage. Water ice will undergo this process at below-freezing temperatures. I have seen this occurring in my freezer with ice receding to the back -- like my hairline! -- without 'melting'.

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39. Comment #198181 by Vaal on June 23, 2008 at 10:15 am

Maverickman

Brilliant avatar. How did you do it? Looks like a David Roberston debate :-))

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40. Comment #203316 by MAVERICKMAN on July 2, 2008 at 3:59 pm

Brilliant avatar. How did you do it? Looks like a David Robertson debate :-))

Thanks for the compliment, Vaal, but I simply downloaded the avatar from the large selection available here.

It's taken from the Monty Python "Argument" sketch.

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41. Comment #204005 by mmurray on July 4, 2008 at 2:41 am

Reports now are things are looking tricky with a short circuit possibly caused by shaking needed to break sand up.

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/080703-ap-phoenix-last-bake.html

Michael

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