Apparently, Phoenix found ice on Mars

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RedFox

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There was some white stuff exposed under the Phoenix lander by dust removal during the landing by the rockets. There was also white stuff in the trenches dug by the robot arm. They thought it could be salt or ice. Pieces of the stuff had disappeared from the trench, consistent with it being ice because water ice would sublimate or turn to gas when exposed to the thin air of Mars.

Here is an animation showing the same trench 4 days apart. Some of these pieces disappeared and some of the white surfaces did too. :shock:

I hope they can dig up some more and get them into the lander's ovens see if they are made of water before they go byebye. :lol:

The Phoenix lander is at about 68 degrees north as shown here. The ground there has lumpy polygonal shapes, much like the arctic on Earth.
 
Last night I read from a different article saying there is life on Mars. Yes Life.

But before you say anything...think about this:

Ever since the very begining of Earth, where water, plants, and dry land existed...there was the very first organisms that existed on Earth millions of years before other living organisms existed...you know what that is?

A virus.

Yep...a virus. They've found that there are baterica living in the grounds of Mars...so that could explain why there's water and ice there.
 
yea of course i already know this .. so right now i think they go for getting ice and putting in their chamber then test it.. let see what they got.. i dont know yet..

i already keep up space thing news..
 
All you people should read a book by kim stanley robinson called Red Mars (with the 2 sequels green mars, and blue mars)

its scary how realistic it is to possibly colonize that planet.
 
dead money said:
All you people should read a book by kim stanley robinson called Red Mars (with the 2 sequels green mars, and blue mars)

its scary how realistic it is to possibly colonize that planet.
Click to expand...

I've been meaning to get and read those books.
 
dead money said:
All you people should read a book by kim stanley robinson called Red Mars (with the 2 sequels green mars, and blue mars)

its scary how realistic it is to possibly colonize that planet.
Click to expand...

Thanks for mentioning these books. I will definitely get them!
 
I have always been fascinated by the mystery around Mars and so interested in reading stuffs on Mars.
 
Yup, so interesting yet little strange that there has some "dry" ice under the Mars soil, apparently. Know me meant?! lol
 
Yup so mysterious about the Mars!

It's so wonderful about the rovers and the lander that made it to Mars and all are continuing their works especially those rovers - too incredible that they still run after 3 (or 4) years, awesome!

Remember that they predicted those rovers would last only up to 6 months but they were very wrong. lol Historically, it usually fails around 60% to reach Mars successfully in the past.

So it indeed gets more interesting as time goes ahead.
 
I got question... what was the surface temperature? I do not think it could be ice, maybe something else. If it is truly ice, it would turn into liquid for a while before evaporating, that part has not happen. Perhaps it could be an element that we never heard of nor seen before and does not exist on Earth.

Still it remains mystery anyway.
 
diehardbiker said:
I got question... what was the surface temperature? I do not think it could be ice, maybe something else. If it is truly ice, it would turn into liquid for a while before evaporating, that part has not happen. Perhaps it could be an element that we never heard of nor seen before and does not exist on Earth.

Still it remains mystery anyway.
Click to expand...

The reason why water ice would sublimate on Mars even if it's cold there is because of the low atmospheric pressure. It's only 0.7 to 0.9 kilopascals on Mars when it's it's 101.3 kilopascal at sea level on Earth. Here's the phase diagram of water. It has the letters V, E and M to show the mean conditions of temperature and air pressure on the planets Venus, Earth and Mars. It's easy for water ice to go directly from solid to gas on Mars, like carbon dioxide ice does on Earth in typical conditions. The air pressure on Mars is too low to stop the water molecules in ice from simply escaping from the ice into the air.

The reverse process, deposition, happens on Earth when frost and snowflakes form directly out of water vapor.
 
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