Liquid Water on Mars

On Wed, 06 Dec 2006 23:05:38 GMT, in a place far, far away, David
Spain made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such
a way as to indicate that:

Rand Simberg wrote:
On Wed, 06 Dec 2006 22:43:51 GMT, in a place far, far away, David
Spain made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such
a way as to indicate that:

The BBC reports that others claim this could have been due
to liquid CO2 flows instead of water.

"Liquid CO2"? On Mars? Do they know the atmospheric (non)pressure
there?


"Others claim" that we didn't go to the moon.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6214834.stm

Para. 8 and 9.

I don't know the state table for CO2, but the article did mention
a surface temperature of -107 deg C.

Temperature isn't the issue, if it's on the surface. Someone at the
BBC needs to look at a phase table for CO2. You need a lot more
pressure than is available to get above the triple point. At anything
less than earth atmospheric pressure (let alone Mars), and actually
quite a bit higher than that, you don't get liquid CO2 at that
temperature--you get solid CO2. It sublimes directly from solid to
gas, which is why they call it "dry ice."

On Wed, 06 Dec 2006 23:21:01 GMT, in a place far, far away,
h (Rand Simberg) made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

The BBC reports that others claim this could have been due
to liquid CO2 flows instead of water.

"Liquid CO2"? On Mars? Do they know the atmospheric (non)pressure
there?


"Others claim" that we didn't go to the moon.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6214834.stm

Para. 8 and 9.

I don't know the state table for CO2, but the article did mention
a surface temperature of -107 deg C.

Temperature isn't the issue, if it's on the surface. Someone at the
BBC needs to look at a phase table for CO2. You need a lot more
pressure than is available to get above the triple point. At anything
less than earth atmospheric pressure (let alone Mars), and actually
quite a bit higher than that, you don't get liquid CO2 at that
temperature--you get solid CO2. It sublimes directly from solid to
gas, which is why they call it "dry ice."

D'oh!

I see on rereading that it's not on the surface...

Rand Simberg wrote:
D'oh!

I see on rereading that it's not on the surface...

Yep. Sorry I was not clear on that point...

Dave

Rand Simberg wrote:

D'oh!

I see on rereading that it's not on the surface...



Jets of liquid CO2 blasting into a gaseous form as it comes into
contact with the surface from subsurface deposits would explain a lot of
oddities on Mars.

Pat

In message , Rand Simberg
writes
On Wed, 06 Dec 2006 23:05:38 GMT, in a place far, far away, David
Spain made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such
a way as to indicate that:

Rand Simberg wrote:
On Wed, 06 Dec 2006 22:43:51 GMT, in a place far, far away, David
Spain made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such
a way as to indicate that:

The BBC reports that others claim this could have been due
to liquid CO2 flows instead of water.

"Liquid CO2"? On Mars? Do they know the atmospheric (non)pressure
there?


"Others claim" that we didn't go to the moon.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6214834.stm

Para. 8 and 9.

I don't know the state table for CO2, but the article did mention
a surface temperature of -107 deg C.

Temperature isn't the issue, if it's on the surface. Someone at the
BBC needs to look at a phase table for CO2. You need a lot more
pressure than is available to get above the triple point. At anything
less than earth atmospheric pressure (let alone Mars), and actually
quite a bit higher than that, you don't get liquid CO2 at that
temperature--you get solid CO2. It sublimes directly from solid to
gas, which is why they call it "dry ice."

Isn't one argument that the CO2 is under pressure because it's under a
considerable depth of rock?
http://unisci.com/stories/20012/0402013.htm
Only something like spectral analysis of one of these outflows will
decide what's happening.

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:


Isn't one argument that the CO2 is under pressure because it's under a
considerable depth of rock? http://unisci.com/stories/20012/0402013.htm
Only something like spectral analysis of one of these outflows will
decide what's happening.


Yeah, that will definitely solve it- if it's CO2 ice, then we know that
a lot of the same part water plays on Earth is being done by subsurface
liquid CO2 on Mars. If on the other hand it turns out to be water ice...
then we've got to do some major rethinking on how Mars works, starting
with where the heat is coming from to keep the water liquid.
Although it's a completely off-the-wall hypothesis, life that developed
in liquid water might be able to create a way to keep water liquid at
very cold temperatures by the evolution of something like a biological
antifreeze solution.
Such life, living in superchilled subsurface streams and water pockets,
could escape the hard radiation that bombards the surface of the planet,
and feed directly off minerals in the soil.
So, what do I think the likelihood of that being the case is?
Oh, around 1 in 1000 at best. :-D
I think they'll find this is CO2 in action.

Pat