That is exactly what I wanted to say as well. It seems every other month, I see the exact the same title. At some point, it loses it becomes just another useless news
Yes, there are subtleties here that are missed by the headline. Water ice on Mars is not new, particularly in the polar ice caps. What is new is that they have produced a map of (very) near surface water ice at lower latitudes (within a few centimetres of the surface). This isn't exactly a surprise, but it also hasn't really been shown before. It shows that the water is there and widely available.
I'd like to see someone gather up all of the articles relating to water on mars and place them on a timeline with brief summaries of the actual progress being done. To most people it looks like water on mars over and over.
It doesn't help that with this and most other science news, press releases always try to make the discoveries look like major breakthroughs when they are, in fact, incremental additions to our knowledge.
From the abstract of the article in GRL, here's a sentence on the novelty of this particular work:
> While several investigations have already predicted, identified, and characterized some properties of near‐surface ice on Mars, our results constitute a significant advance in the context of the upcoming crewed exploration because 1) they focus on very shallow depths accessible with limited equipment, 2) they provide continuous regional coverage including the mid‐latitudes, and 3) they yield moderate spatial resolution maps (3 ppd [= pixels per degree of lat/lon, I believe]) relevant to landing site selection studies.
The basic measurement used is surface thermal emission vs. time, which is inverted using a thermal model with a rock/ice depth boundary, thermal emission from the surface, albedo, solar insolation angle, conduction by a faint atmosphere, etc.
The paper also mentions that one of the co-authors passed away unexpectedly while the paper was being written. RIP.
Okay, so once ezposed to the thin atmosphere the ice sublimates fairly quickly. Does it then ger lost to space, as the solar winds rip it away? I am just wondering if ice is a non renewable resource on Mars.
1) The original NASA article had a more in-depth explanation - maybe we could change the story URL to use that? [1]
2) Yes, we've known for a while now that Mars has water ice. This is new science because they've built up a comprehensive map with the goal of identifying good landing sites for future missions to Mars, in particular missions focused on in-situ resource utilization of Martian water ice. The data is derived from current Mars probes, the Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey Orbiter.
I can't wait to see the Mars helicopter scout on the 2020 rover mission. It's kind of useless on its own but if the design works it would really open up exploration opportunities to validate large scale maps like this. Add some kind of tool bay that it can fly around and 'do science', returning to the rover to grab a new tool.
It's really cool but I wonder what kind of range it could feasibly achieve. Personally I like the idea of high altitude helium balloons. You can't control the direction but they could stay up for much longer than something that used powered flight.
Yep. I actually ran the numbers on this (in a spreadsheet) and even ordered a weather balloon to try and built a DIY survey balloon that might also work on Mars. Got bogged down by the hardware side though, and abandoned the project. :D
The demonstrator going to Mars on the 2020 mission can only fly for 90 seconds per day and afaik has no science objectives other than trying to fly. But if it proves viable they could presumably scale it up to something with a longer range (say 5-10km/day).
Correct, it is going to test the technology and take photos with its 2 color cameras.
This is basically a project that was "Let's try this, how much weight does the mission have to spare? Ouch, that's not a lot, let's see what we can do", that's my takeaway from this episode anyway https://www.planetary.org/multimedia/planetary-radio/show/20...
> She said the size of the rotors was restricted to 1.2 meters by the space available on the Mars 2020 rover’s belly pan. In turn, the 1.2-meter rotor diameter limits the mass of the helicopter to 4 pounds — 1.8 kilograms — based on the rarefied density of the Martian atmosphere.
> “The biggest thing is the atmospheric density at Mars is very thin,” Aung said in an interview Friday. “It’s 1 percent of that at Earth. It’s equivalent to about 100,000 feet in altitude here on Earth. The other difference is the gravity at Mars is lower. It’s about 40 percent. That plays into how much we can lift.”
> The rotors on the Mars Helicopter will spin between 2,400 and 2,900 rpm, about 10 times faster than a helicopter flying in Earth’s atmosphere.
It also lowers the speed of sound. This poses some design limitations and since traditionally designed rotors get less efficient near Mach 1- they still work, but not as well. So you have to spin the rotors fast to generate enough lift, but you want to keep them slow so the tips don't go supersonic. Helicopters/drones on Mars are a tough design problem in areas beyond just the atmospheric- you can't use a gas engine because you can't refuel it, recharging a battery with solar energy takes forever because there is less solar radiation. You can't replace the rotors if you crash, so you need to make it robust, but you can't make it too heavy. On and on...
Maybe a balloon to provide most of the lift, then attach a few electric props? And if you have access to ice, maybe we can use solar panel to electrolise it into fuel.
Also, although we know there is water ice at the poles, it's locked under a cap of frozen CO2 between 1 and 8 meters thick. This sub-surface water ice between the polar regions is comparatively much more accessible, only 2.5cm below the surface in some cases.
Just searching Hacker news for "mars water" returns 200 results, dating back to 9 years ago. It seems NASA keeps "finding water" on Mars and then forgets about it.
Tangential, is "ice" ever used in chemistry or other fields to refer to solids other than water? Other than "dry ice," colloquially. Would you ever call solid oxygen, "oxygen ice"?
Planetary scientists often classify volatiles with exceptionally low melting points, such as hydrogen and helium, as gases (as in gas giant), whereas those volatiles with melting points above about 100 K (–173 °C, –280 °F) are referred to as ices. The terms "gas" and "ice" in this context can apply to compounds that may be solids, liquids or gases. Thus, Jupiter and Saturn are gas giants, and Uranus and Neptune are ice giants, even though the vast majority of the "gas" and "ice" in their interiors is a hot, highly dense fluid that gets denser as the center of the planet is approached.
I would say, yes, in astronomy, anyway. Titan has methane ice on the surface (as well as liquid and gaseous methane). The polar caps on Mars contain carbon dioxide ice as well as water ice.
Publications (Engadget in this case) keep leaving details out in the the headline to make it more click-bait, and the result is that there are at least 10 articles/month claiming that "NASA just found water/ice on Mars!!!".
Available through various institutions for free. You'll find the authors to be established Mars scientists who've been weighing in on the water/ice (and other things) discussions over the years.
"Frozen water is a very strong heat conductor compared to typical Martian regolith. As a result, near-surface ice measurably influences seasonal surface temperature trends, and the depth of the H2O table controls the amplitude of this effect. We leverage this influence on orbital temperature observations using a numerical heat transfer model to derive regional and
local maps of the ice depth on Mars, at much higher spatial resolution than previously available. We show that water ice is present sometimes just a few cm below the surface, at locations where future landing is realistic, under mobile material that could easily be moved around. This ice could be exploited on-site for drinking water, breathable oxygen, etc., at a much lower cost than if brought from Earth."
The old joke of "We find water on Mars every 18 months" is only true when observing though the lens of popular media and newspapers. The references section of any of these publications are clear evidence that no one has forgotten the earlier evidence.
Good point ... your link is the 2-page conference version (from June) of the larger and more-detailed journal submission (which was more recent, and for me, not available in full form yet on the journal website).
I was wondering the same thing. What's exactly happening here? Is uBlock origin blocking this page after it gets loaded? I don't see guce.advertising.com ever been requested in the network tab either.
engadget does a HTTP 307 temporary redirect to the site. ublock inserting its warning page leads to a security context switch to an extension page which triggers a dev tools reload which in turn removes the request history. You can view the requests in the global browser console instead.
Presumably the ad would direct you back to engadget once you click or something and add a parameter to prevent an infinite redirect loop.
For anybody interested more in landing on the moon someday instead of Mars I have good news. It seems that the first person to bring his/her bike to the moon is going to be able to rent their apparatus to successive travelers without running in to the risk of property theft.
"You wouldn't need a backhoe to dig up this ice. You could use a shovel"
People in clumsy, restrictive spacesuits, in low gravity, using shovels to crack through the frozen surface? Then using picks to break up the water ice? then carrying tons of said ice to the electrolysis => H2 => CH4 get-me-outta-here fuel machine?
That can't be right. I need to see the full plan here.
51 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 78.0 ms ] threadScience-News-Timelines.Org - Startup idea, maybe?
> While several investigations have already predicted, identified, and characterized some properties of near‐surface ice on Mars, our results constitute a significant advance in the context of the upcoming crewed exploration because 1) they focus on very shallow depths accessible with limited equipment, 2) they provide continuous regional coverage including the mid‐latitudes, and 3) they yield moderate spatial resolution maps (3 ppd [= pixels per degree of lat/lon, I believe]) relevant to landing site selection studies.
The basic measurement used is surface thermal emission vs. time, which is inverted using a thermal model with a rock/ice depth boundary, thermal emission from the surface, albedo, solar insolation angle, conduction by a faint atmosphere, etc.
The paper also mentions that one of the co-authors passed away unexpectedly while the paper was being written. RIP.
2) Yes, we've known for a while now that Mars has water ice. This is new science because they've built up a comprehensive map with the goal of identifying good landing sites for future missions to Mars, in particular missions focused on in-situ resource utilization of Martian water ice. The data is derived from current Mars probes, the Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey Orbiter.
[1] https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasas-treasure-map-for-wate...
This is basically a project that was "Let's try this, how much weight does the mission have to spare? Ouch, that's not a lot, let's see what we can do", that's my takeaway from this episode anyway https://www.planetary.org/multimedia/planetary-radio/show/20...
https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/05/14/helicopter-to-accompan...
> She said the size of the rotors was restricted to 1.2 meters by the space available on the Mars 2020 rover’s belly pan. In turn, the 1.2-meter rotor diameter limits the mass of the helicopter to 4 pounds — 1.8 kilograms — based on the rarefied density of the Martian atmosphere.
> “The biggest thing is the atmospheric density at Mars is very thin,” Aung said in an interview Friday. “It’s 1 percent of that at Earth. It’s equivalent to about 100,000 feet in altitude here on Earth. The other difference is the gravity at Mars is lower. It’s about 40 percent. That plays into how much we can lift.”
> The rotors on the Mars Helicopter will spin between 2,400 and 2,900 rpm, about 10 times faster than a helicopter flying in Earth’s atmosphere.
Here it is running in test chamber at mars equivalent atmospheric density - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMCJGfwj3rY
The thin atmosphere cuts both ways. It generates less lift. But it inflicts less drag.
Would they work in Mars' atmosphere?
Planetary scientists often classify volatiles with exceptionally low melting points, such as hydrogen and helium, as gases (as in gas giant), whereas those volatiles with melting points above about 100 K (–173 °C, –280 °F) are referred to as ices. The terms "gas" and "ice" in this context can apply to compounds that may be solids, liquids or gases. Thus, Jupiter and Saturn are gas giants, and Uranus and Neptune are ice giants, even though the vast majority of the "gas" and "ice" in their interiors is a hot, highly dense fluid that gets denser as the center of the planet is approached.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volatiles
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2019GL08...
Available through various institutions for free. You'll find the authors to be established Mars scientists who've been weighing in on the water/ice (and other things) discussions over the years.
"Frozen water is a very strong heat conductor compared to typical Martian regolith. As a result, near-surface ice measurably influences seasonal surface temperature trends, and the depth of the H2O table controls the amplitude of this effect. We leverage this influence on orbital temperature observations using a numerical heat transfer model to derive regional and local maps of the ice depth on Mars, at much higher spatial resolution than previously available. We show that water ice is present sometimes just a few cm below the surface, at locations where future landing is realistic, under mobile material that could easily be moved around. This ice could be exploited on-site for drinking water, breathable oxygen, etc., at a much lower cost than if brought from Earth."
The old joke of "We find water on Mars every 18 months" is only true when observing though the lens of popular media and newspapers. The references section of any of these publications are clear evidence that no one has forgotten the earlier evidence.
https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/ninthmars2019/pdf/6027.pdf
uBlock₀ has prevented the following page from loading :
I managed by using wget instead...Presumably the ad would direct you back to engadget once you click or something and add a parameter to prevent an infinite redirect loop.
And it's warmer there, and has, y'know, air.
https://medium.com/spaceinmylifetime/how-spacex-will-refuel-...
People in clumsy, restrictive spacesuits, in low gravity, using shovels to crack through the frozen surface? Then using picks to break up the water ice? then carrying tons of said ice to the electrolysis => H2 => CH4 get-me-outta-here fuel machine?
That can't be right. I need to see the full plan here.