Water Ice Confirmed!, White stuff sublimates away Options

[Stu]

Teleconference on right now...

[mhoward]

Big day for Mark and the rest of the team. Congratulations!

[ugordan]

Big day for Mark and the rest of the team. Congratulations!

Indeed! It's awesome that an imaging instrument was able to beat other ones to the discovery and practically nail this as ice.

[brianc]

Indeed! It's awesome that an imaging instrument was able to beat other ones to the discovery and practically nail this as ice.

ICE - wow that sure is COOL !

[CryptoEngineer]

It's probably time to start looking for evidence of rust on the footpads...

Very early after landing Phoenix took a look under the craft,
showing exposed bright material where the landing jets had blown
the sand away.

It would be interesting to revisit this area and see if there have
been any visible changes. This 'bright stuff' has been exposed
for much longer than any in the trenches.

ce

[marsbug]

Even in the darkest shadow there appears to be "something" where the white clumps were -- so, yes, there may have been a dramatic change in the white clumps -- but perhaps no more so than the reductiion in the brightness parts of the top of the trench.

Yeah, I believe that it's water-ice but it's not yet scientifically proven.

I am still puzzled why the infrared spectrum from the left SSI camera has not been cited as supporting evidence for water-ice.

I agree that this doesn't prove the case for water, and that hydrated salts are a possibility, but I just don't see what you do on the animation: There are a lot of changes that could be due to different shadowing or image artefacts, but I don't see any consistent outlines between the two frames, and the shadowing around the lumps looks to change as well. Is there any chance you could draw me some outlines to make it a bit clearer?

Go on drop out of cyberspace, the view from here is just as interesting!

Edit; ICE, I meant doesn't prove the case for ICE, please oh great god of woo don't strike me down!

[bcory]

Well the whole world knows now about the water ice

It's the main headline on the Drudge Report website

points to a Bloomberg article:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...refer=worldwide

[Greg Watson]

Sure looks like ice in this blinker

[CosmicRocker]

... If the lumps were dirty ice, then surely you wouldn't expect them to completely disappear.

Exactly. If the disappearing lumps were composed of sedimentary particles cemented by ice, the lumps would disintegrate when the ice sublimed, but not completely disappear.

[Guest_Oersted_*]

Man, I really think this discovery, or rather confirmation, demands a new thread, something entitled "it IS ice"... Done - J

We now know for sure that Mars is full of rocket fuel and water to drink. Fantastic news.

[nprev]

We now know for sure that Mars is full of rocket fuel and water to drink.

I think we've been pretty confident of that for several years now based on orbiter data, but it is indeed nice to see it at a "human" scale of reference...and at an easily accessible depth.

Now there's the problem of getting ice-laden samples into the ovens before it sublimates. CNN reported yesterday that a fresh dig had only about 30 min for delivery before ice crystals small enough to filter through the screens would sublimate off; is this accurate?

[ugordan]

CNN reported yesterday that a fresh dig had only about 30 min for delivery before ice crystals small enough to filter through the screens would sublimate off; is this accurate?

That's probably based on the telecon yesterday (Miles O'Brien was 'there'), when they said they wanted the whole process to take 30 minutes. That does not necessarily mean the ice would sublimate that fast.

[nprev]

Thanks, Gordan! Had to miss the telecon; I'm in Texas attending a work-related class.

I would be curious to know just how rapidly suitably small ice crystals would sublimate during the daytime at the site, though. Presumably the team has a model for this; they'd need it to estimate the actual water content of the sample prior to acquisition.

[curious]

Very early after landing Phoenix took a look under the craft,
showing exposed bright material where the landing jets had blown
the sand away.

It would be interesting to revisit this area and see if there have
been any visible changes. This 'bright stuff' has been exposed
for much longer than any in the trenches.

ce

Sorry for barging in, just a quick comment then I'll slink away to lurk-mode again.

These mission scientists are circumspect and they won't state things until they have absolute proof, and that's good. But:

As soon as we saw what got exposed by the rockets it was instantly obvious that anywhere they dug they would find more ice. By the flat heterogeneous landscape it's true for miles around. Phoenix is sitting on a frozen f'ing lake bed. Orbital data already says there is a vast amount of water ice underneath.

Other things that strike me as just 'obvious:'

They are digging these trenches side by side to make a clean workspace for going as deep as they can reach without surface material cascading into it, so as to get purer ice samples.

At this latitude the 'surface,' the depth to which sublimation happens at this time of year, is ideal. It's an awesome location for this experiment. They nailed it, absolutely perfectly.

But the real shock is yet to come, if it does: That will be if/when they detect amino acids in the ice makeup. On that discovery, they will be very, very circumspect - as they should be.

Very exciting times, it's truly historic. Water ice up close is unprecedented.

Thanks for this forum and to all who post, it's a terrific read. You do a superb job of getting down to details, which is why someone 'stating the obvious' is just a bandwidth-waster on one level, but is hopefully also perspective provoking and encouraging. Cheers

[ElkGroveDan]

BTW have we had a look at Snow Queen lately? Ten bucks and my left (elbow) says it is going to sublimate away, albeit slower than the fresh samples.

The feature reminds me of those dirty ice chunks that build up under the wheel wells of a car and then drop on the street.