After all the effort and money invested in Mars exploration over the last fifteen years or so it is easy to see why people would want to find some possible evidence of extant life. I'm just hoping that a negative result on methane today won't hurt the will to explore Mars's deep past, and I think that should be my last word before this drifts any further from topic.

...or the methane doesn't exist.

Barring instrument faults on either the rover or orbiter in question, three scenarios pop into my head: Either the methane is somehow very well isolated to a higher region of the atmosphere, the lifespan of methane in the martian atmosphere is much shorter than previously believed, or some unrecognised factor in the equation has changed. Could Mars Express re-take the atmospheric methane measurements?

I'd just like to point out: 'Swarm' was just a term of convenience, Ie lots of litle co-operateing craft. Didn't intend to mislead anyone as to their capabilities.

Even accounting for launch costs this still seems a a cheap mission. Perhaps they are designing around a pre-existing nano-sat platform like cubesat? RE tanjent: I wonder if this approach would suit NEO exploration well, given the low cost and (presumably) low power reserves for transmission on each unit?

Good evening all, I hope this is an appropriate place to ask this question: I read this space.com article which quotes a cost for an Earth observing mission of 12 million US dollars (mission hardware only) using a swarm of nano-sats. This seems to me to remarkably cheap, so I was wondering if I am missing something, or if my ideas about what Earth observing missions cost is grossly inflated by only reading about the highest profile ones?

Loving it, wish I'd been around when these mission flew!

Thats good, a claim like that needs to be challenged (without passing judgment on it myself - challenging it is just scientific process at work). Do you recall any of the specifics of McEwans critisicm?

HiRISE strikes again on the looking for water front: LPSC 2011, spectral evidence for liquid water on Mars.

Thats good to know.

For convinience here is the abstract from LPSC. It makes for interesting reading, but I suggest great caution in declaring liquid water found, much less a habitable environment. Hopefully CRISM observations will make a stronger case or put this to bed.

Good advice, thanks!

Is he on the forum? I've had alook at the usernames list and theres a Vincent.... I'm hesitant to e-mail his listed address, some people don't take kindly to being pestered by random strangers!

Does anyone know if there are any titan-related abstracts submitted by Vincent Chevirer? I read this article last year on plans for a titan simulation chamber, and I'm hoping to hear some news on how its progressing (or perhaps even that they've done some preliminary experiments).

Ummm... The first manned expedition to Titan finds a man swaiting by the shore of Ontario Lacus with a surfboard. When asked what he was doing there he replied: 'Dude in a bar on Ceres told me the surf here's gonna be amazing when this cold snap ends!'

[tumbleweed rolls by].....Please don't shoot me.

Thanks for that, its a good resource for anyone trying to understand the many water on Mars questions. I hope you don't mind if I link people to this thread and that post in future?

I wonder, is it possible that usefull observations of Venus could still be made? Long term monitoring of the infra red spectrum of Venus might be usefull in support of Venus Express, even if Venus only appears as a single pixel to the instrument?

I'm actually looking forward to hearing what they may come up with. I really hope there is still a usefull mission to perform. If the team can deliver a scientificaly compelling mission for Akatsuki on its current orbit they may turn tuesday/wedensdays disaster into a 'finest hour' moment.

Assuming the craft is healthy, aside from whatever caused the engine failiure, is there any hope of recycling the craft as in Deep Impact/EPOXI? 7 years is a long time to do nothing even if they think they can get it into Venusian orbit at that time. But even if they don't think they can make a venus orbit it seems a shame to throw a healthy spacecraft away.

From the above link:

Press conference at 2400 japan time? Thats about 45 minutes if thats what it means. Don't know what the SAC team is or whether them preparing to withdraw is a good or bad sign.

Having quit smoking I can say withdrawal is generaly unpleasant but nescecary! (attempt at humour!)

koumeiShibata tweet seems to be reporting an interview with project manager Nakamura. Its hard to make out but he seems to be saying that they need to work out where the craft ASAP as tomorrow would be too late to perform a course correction if its needed.

The impression i'm getting from the various tweets and blogs is that they've established some kind of communication with the craft through its low gain antenna. The orbit and inclination seem to be unknowns at the moment, there may be a problem with the crafts rotation ( which should be about an axis going through the thruster and the high gain antenna) that is preventing the high gain antenna from being used. Basically shes alive but they don't yet know where or what shape she's in.
Anyone getting anything radically different?

I hope this is another hayabusa where they pull it back.

So do I - I have to get to bed....good luck Akatsuki!

A very quick bit of reading tells me that SHARAD has avertical resolution of 15 to 20 meters. The electrical ( and hence radar) properties of water are different from those of ice so at a very very ill informed guess I'd say that SHARAD probably could distinguish between the two. So assuming my guess is near the mark the question is what is the vertical extent of these possible aquifers?

How big would such an aquifer need to be to be picked up by SHARAD? We know there is a fair bit of relatively low lattitude ice a few meters beneath the martian surface, so wouldn't we expect to have seen some evidence if aquifers if this were happening in the present day?

Hi Pandaneko Focused Ion Beam Milling is one possible approach, and can be applied to stuctures on the order of hundreds of nanometers.

In that image theres a feature, roughly in the middle of the left hand 'lump' that looks like the impression left by a giant tadpole Looks very smooth compared to the region around it, I wonder if its real?

These jets look very distinct, I wonder how well that gels withthe idea that cometary jets are the product of surface wide sublimation focused by topography? I recall that being the most favoured mechanism behind cometary jets, though I could be out of date or just plain misremembering.

Lunar water is present only in regions of incredible cold. As a rule I can't imagine subsurface regions that would accumulate water being warm enough for it to melt.

I can imagine liquid water forming in the subsurface as a very rare and short lived event, for example if a subsurface volatile resevoir were close enough to a major impact to be warmed above freezing without being totally driven off or disrupted. But this would be more like a short lived pond of subsurface slurry, and would either quickly re-freze or, if there was enough impact heat to keep the subsurface warm over a longer period, be driven from the regolith as vapour.

There have been studies of impact induced hydrothermalism on Mars I believe- perhaps these might provide some further insight? There may be enough similarities for the two situations to be meanigfully compared.

Even if it transpires that impact induced hydrothermalism could work on the moon such events are likely to be rare in its history and therefore it is unlikely that such a body of water would be currently present.