Phoenix science results, Beginning with December 2008 AGU meeting |
Phoenix science results, Beginning with December 2008 AGU meeting |
Dec 15 2008, 09:22 PM
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Administrator Group: Admin Posts: 5172 Joined: 4-August 05 From: Pasadena, CA, USA, Earth Member No.: 454 |
I figured it was time for a new thread, since we finally seem to be getting some science results out of Phoenix. The press release should be out shortly.
First numerical result I've heard was given by Peter Smith at today's press briefing at AGU: TEGA found that the soil is composed of 5% calcium carbonate, which is a significant result. Hopefully more will hit the Web soon -- post here when the links go up! --Emily -------------------- My website - My Patreon - @elakdawalla on Twitter - Please support unmannedspaceflight.com by donating here.
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Dec 17 2008, 03:09 PM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 4250 Joined: 17-January 05 Member No.: 152 |
I agree, Marsbug - I also noticed that change in the interpretation of the results and I'm curious about the details too.
If you haven't noticed it, a plot of "simplified" data from TECP was presented yesterday. Perhaps this gives us a clue. To my eye there's no clear anticorrelation between the atmospheric and soil measurements - there are peaks in the soil measurement during the day. Perhaps a sign that there's some non-trivial dynamics going on here - more than just a simple "soil at night" and "air during the day" cycle? I wouldn't describe it as "hopelessly pedantic", just being curious about the scientific process... |
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Dec 18 2008, 12:15 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 401 Joined: 5-January 07 From: Manchester England Member No.: 1563 |
If you haven't noticed it, a plot of "simplified" data from TECP was presented yesterday. Perhaps this gives us a clue. To my eye there's no clear anticorrelation between the atmospheric and soil measurements - there are peaks in the soil measurement during the day. Perhaps a sign that there's some non-trivial dynamics going on here - more than just a simple "soil at night" and "air during the day" cycle? Well we have a layer of ice, lying below a fairly complex regolith mixture containing water absorbing salts, as well as grains for water molecules to adhere to, and probably a small amount of ice in some form, topped by water/CO2 frosts and snow coming from an atmosphere that supports water ice clouds. So there's a lot of sinks and sources of water, which means complex behavoir for water in the soils is pretty inevitable. On the subject of the films, the impression I get on re-reading the release and the articles is that the team are probably being a little cagey because there's still a lot of analysis ahead. My hunch is that the films are probably averaging less than one molecule thick throughout most of the soil, and hence form as a series of patchy 'islands' around favourable spots for water molecules to deposit. That would make them much harder to 'see' as a continous electrical path through the soil wouldn't be there. So when the team digs into the data they may find evidence for these islands of water activity, but hesitate to describe them as films, because....er.... well they aren't they're little islands of H2O clustered together! -------------------- |
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