Author Topic: Liquid Water found on Mars  (Read 14110 times)

Offline hopalong

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Liquid Water found on Mars
« on: 07/25/2018 02:47 pm »
This just appeared on the BBC news website.

Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-44952710

Radar data from Mars Express shows an lake of liquid water underground. Likely to be very salty, but water is water.


« Last Edit: 07/25/2018 02:47 pm by hopalong »

Offline jak Kennedy

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Re: Liquid Water found on Mars
« Reply #1 on: 07/25/2018 02:51 pm »
I am glad NASA did not have a big build up to this information beforehand. Their previous announcements have always been a let down to the build up. Strangely this seems like a very important discovery though.
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Offline Star One

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Re: Liquid Water found on Mars
« Reply #2 on: 07/25/2018 03:06 pm »
I am glad NASA did not have a big build up to this information beforehand. Their previous announcements have always been a let down to the build up. Strangely this seems like a very important discovery though.

I don’t know rather cold water with lots of salts dissolved in it doesn’t sound like the most friendly environment for life.

Offline whitelancer64

Re: Liquid Water found on Mars
« Reply #3 on: 07/25/2018 03:40 pm »
I am glad NASA did not have a big build up to this information beforehand. Their previous announcements have always been a let down to the build up. Strangely this seems like a very important discovery though.

I don’t know rather cold water with lots of salts dissolved in it doesn’t sound like the most friendly environment for life.
There are a couple of similar lakes under the ice in Antarctica that have bacteria living in them.
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Offline TripleSeven

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Re: Liquid Water found on Mars
« Reply #4 on: 07/25/2018 03:57 pm »
this is fascinating

Offline oldAtlas_Eguy

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Re: Liquid Water found on Mars
« Reply #5 on: 07/25/2018 04:03 pm »
As an estimate at 1m depth, a 14 km diameter lake at such has a volume of 150 million cubic meters. BTW 1 cubic meter ~= 1 metric ton. So this lake is 150 million metric tons of water. That would support 1000 BFS launches from the surface per year for > 200 years (=~600,000mt/yr or 120 million mt in 200 years). It also could be used if 50% or more goes for human environment support could support a population of up to 1 billion persons.

As far as Mars colonization this is extremely good news.

So it could support both a aggressive launch support campaign for BFS and also an aggressive colonization expansion.
« Last Edit: 07/25/2018 04:07 pm by oldAtlas_Eguy »

Offline JPK

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Re: Liquid Water found on Mars
« Reply #6 on: 07/25/2018 04:04 pm »
re NASA not making a big fuss. Mars Express is an ESA space craft not a NASA spacecraft.

Offline Star One

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Offline Star One

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Liquid Water found on Mars
« Reply #8 on: 07/25/2018 07:27 pm »
Emily Lakdawalla’s informative blog about this news.

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2018/liquid-water-on-mars-really.html

Also there are other explanations than water for this result.

Quote
Jeffery Plaut at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in California, Pasadena, cautions that the find seems promising, but will need to be confirmed with further study. The radar images could also be explained by particular arrangements of carbon dioxide ice or very pure water ice, he says.

“If the result is confirmed, it would be the largest known occurrence of present-day liquid water on Mars,” says Plaut. “It clearly has implications for the history of climate and the possibility of habitats suitable for life.”

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2174955-massive-lake-of-water-found-beneath-mars-south-pole-could-host-life/amp/
« Last Edit: 07/25/2018 07:32 pm by Star One »

Offline Jeff Lerner

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Re: Liquid Water found on Mars
« Reply #9 on: 07/25/2018 08:00 pm »
Does this news affect any M2020 landing site selections ??

Offline Hauerg

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Re: Liquid Water found on Mars
« Reply #10 on: 07/25/2018 08:12 pm »
If somebody has a mile long drill available that fits on the lander, why not?

Offline Star One

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Re: Liquid Water found on Mars
« Reply #11 on: 07/25/2018 08:21 pm »
Does this news affect any M2020 landing site selections ??

Glad someone has asked this.

Offline ThereIWas3

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Re: Liquid Water found on Mars
« Reply #12 on: 07/25/2018 08:22 pm »
The energy required to drill for this water and then pump it out without it freezing on the way up may be less than the energy required to just melt the more accessible ice on the surface.

Offline TripleSeven

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Re: Liquid Water found on Mars
« Reply #13 on: 07/25/2018 08:47 pm »
The energy required to drill for this water and then pump it out without it freezing on the way up may be less than the energy required to just melt the more accessible ice on the surface.

they will figure out how to get to all this...on Deimos...at some point we will turn 80 meter energy subsurface radar lose on Deimos and find out amazing things

Sadly doing this is well at best 30 years away :(

« Last Edit: 07/25/2018 08:48 pm by TripleSeven »

Offline AegeanBlue

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Re: Liquid Water found on Mars
« Reply #14 on: 07/25/2018 09:10 pm »
Does this news affect any M2020 landing site selections ??

Glad someone has asked this.

No it does not. M2020 does not have the heaters or the sterilization to land near the polar region. In any case the drill would go for centimeters, not meters.

This is also being discussed at the Robotic section, at the Mars Express site:

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=953.msg1840895#msg1840895

Offline redliox

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Re: Liquid Water found on Mars
« Reply #15 on: 07/25/2018 09:49 pm »
M2020 does not have the heaters or the sterilization to land near the polar region. In any case the drill would go for centimeters, not meters.

This makes me wonder if a 2nd MSR might venture to the South Pole to fetch that water, planetary protection allowing.
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Offline AegeanBlue

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Re: Liquid Water found on Mars
« Reply #16 on: 07/25/2018 11:32 pm »
There is a discussion for that on the MSR thread too: The water, if it indeed exists (most likely it does but not 100% certain) is 1.5 km under the ice cap. Even on Earth this is not an easy drill and it requires tons of equipment. Also Mars Sample Return is already a very complicated mission, at the current version it takes 3 separate spacecraft to get the sample back to earth, from the caching rover (M2020, approved and getting built) to the fetch rover and space launcher (currently in high end studies and under development) to the return to Earth and landing spacecraft. The whole MSR project costs as much as three flagship missions and the non Mars community is crying foul. The second MSR is likely to be a crewed mission.

Offline Dalhousie

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Re: Liquid Water found on Mars
« Reply #17 on: 07/26/2018 11:28 pm »
I am glad NASA did not have a big build up to this information beforehand. Their previous announcements have always been a let down to the build up. Strangely this seems like a very important discovery though.

It's not a NASA discovery.
Apologies in advance for any lack of civility - it's unintended

Offline Russel

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Re: Liquid Water found on Mars
« Reply #18 on: 07/27/2018 01:24 am »
Yes, this is great news for science.

Its still 1.5Km under the Martian pole. Easier than Europa for sure, but still seriously hard. And we still have to figure out how to do all of this and be certain that the results are valid.

Colonisation? No. Even if colonisation were a good thing, there are easier ways to obtain water on Mars and those are all very difficult and expensive.

Offline MickQ

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Re: Liquid Water found on Mars
« Reply #19 on: 07/27/2018 02:04 am »
Sounds like another job for The Boring Company.

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