Liquid Water on Mars

On Thu, 7 Dec 2006 09:59:11 -0600, Pat Flannery wrote
(in article ):

What they are seeing is eruptions of subsurface liquid CO2, not flows of
water. If they do spectral analysis of those flows, they'll find out they are

made of dry ice, not water ice, and they'll vanish as soon as the temperature

of the ground they are on goes above around -50 C. If they are water ice,
they'll hang around till the temp goes well above that.

Pat, Pat . . . chill. You're becoming obsessed with this water/CO2
business. Why don't you wait and let the planetary scientists (not all
of whom are beholden to the Evil PAO you know) do their thing?

--
Herb Schaltegger
"You can run on for a long time . . . sooner or later, God'll cut you
down." - Johnny Cash
http://www.angryherb.net

Herb Schaltegger wrote:

Pat, Pat . . . chill. You're becoming obsessed with this water/CO2
business. Why don't you wait and let the planetary scientists (not all
of whom are beholden to the Evil PAO you know) do their thing?



Because just like the first time, back in 2000, everyone will read "NASA
FINDS LIQUID WATER ON MARS!" on their newspaper's front page, and the
follow-up saying NASA was wrong will show up in some technical journal,
and appear below "BOY EATS TWO POUND FUDGE SUNDAE!" on the back page of
their newspaper, if at all.
And the NASA PAO knows that's how it works, so it keeps putting out crap
like this, and never gets called on the carpet for it.
Remember ALH 84001? The meteorite that "HAS MARTIAN FOSSIL BACTERIA IN IT!"?
It also had little bubbles in it... little bubbles full of liquid CO2:
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/LPSC99/pdf/1222.pdf
Oddly, that didn't make the front page of the paper. ;-)

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:

The thing is, we keep speculating on liquid water without any means to
get the temperature in the soil high enough to keep it liquid.

Liquid water does not have to be clear water in the form we know it, how
far can you actually get its freezing point down by mixing water with
salts and all kinds of chemicals? We might be seeing the effects of some
kind of 'anti-freeze' liquid consisting of water with lots of other
chemicals.

Every time something seems to show that liquid water or ice doesn't
exist in large quantities now, and may never have existed in large
quantities in the past on Mars, a new hypothetical process is introduced
to allow it to exist _despite_ the evidence.
This isn't how science works, this is how religion works.

I mostly agree with you on this, the reasoning is simple, if you like a
manned mission to Mars (or even, if you like to send more unmanned
spacecraft to Mars) it would help a LOT if you can keep up the story
that there might be life out there. Why haven't we got a whole fleet of
spacecraft circling the moon, simply be course the general public is no
longer interested in it while Mars and its little green man still hold
some kind of fascination. As soon as you state that Mars is a dead place
with lots of ugly chemicals and lots red dry rocks you can forget about
new space missions to the planet.

I always suspect that this explains also the seemingly reluctance to
include any instruments on a lander which actually search for life.
Viking did so, and it "proved" there was no life, with the prompt result
that there was no spacecraft going to Mars for many years until we
managed to find all kinds of theories stating that the Viking
instruments might be wrong or mis-interpretated and since then we search
for all kinds of indirect evidence but not directly for signs of
microscopic life. You almost start believing that there was a plot to
destroy Beagle before it could mess things up by 'proving' once again
that life doesn't exist on Mars...

And one unlikely thing gets piled on top of another unlikely thing to
try and shore up the watery Mars theory.

True, however this does NOT mean that the CO2 theory is MORE likely. If
you try to prove that CO2 in whatever form is creating these features
you run into the same kind of problems, you also need to 'invent' a lot
of (sometimes unlikely) circumstances to make that possible. Simple fact
is we don't have enough data...

Because we want water to be there, just like we want God to be there.
I think what we are going to find is a planet where most of what occurs
on Earth with H2O occurs on Mars with CO2.
So we might want to figure out life forms that live in, and are
basically composed of, liquid CO2 if we have hopes of life up there.

and hope our spacecraft does not produce so much heat that they have
boiled away before we can detect those lifeforms...

Regards,

Geert.

Geert Sassen wrote:


Liquid water does not have to be clear water in the form we know it, how
far can you actually get its freezing point down by mixing water with
salts and all kinds of chemicals? We might be seeing the effects of some
kind of 'anti-freeze' liquid consisting of water with lots of other
chemicals.


That's assuming what's being seen is water If it is water, it's odd
water that can exist in a liquid state at far lower temperatures than
on Earth. You can drop its freezing point around ten degrees by putting
gaseous CO2 in it (I've had a can of beer do this; on opening, it
released all of its carbonation, and turned into slush, making a huge
mess of beer foam on the floor around it).
By adding salt till it's saturated, you can get it's freezing point down
to around -25 C.
But at the depth the "water" is exiting the side of the crater at, the
temperature is going to be near the mean Mars temperature at these
latitudes.... around -60 C. That's so cold that you'd need something as
freeze resistant as a 60-40 glycol/water mixture to keep it liquid:
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF6/680.html
Barring some sort of biological process or underground heating and
liquid water in these conditions becomes very unlikely.

Every time something seems to show that liquid water or ice doesn't
exist in large quantities now, and may never have existed in large
quantities in the past on Mars, a new hypothetical process is
introduced to allow it to exist _despite_ the evidence.
This isn't how science works, this is how religion works.


I mostly agree with you on this, the reasoning is simple, if you like a
manned mission to Mars (or even, if you like to send more unmanned
spacecraft to Mars) it would help a LOT if you can keep up the story
that there might be life out there. Why haven't we got a whole fleet of
spacecraft circling the moon, simply be course the general public is no
longer interested in it while Mars and its little green man still hold
some kind of fascination. As soon as you state that Mars is a dead place
with lots of ugly chemicals and lots red dry rocks you can forget about
new space missions to the planet.


I keep wondering if NASA knew that it had caused itself a real problem
in this regard when it issued the information on the polar CO2 geysering
a few months back.
They stated they thought it caused by pressurized CO2 escaping as a gas
through fractured dry or water ice.
But at the temperatures they are talking about, if you pressurize the
CO2 enough you end up with liquid CO2.
And whereas a subsurface gas pocket of CO2 is going to create a nice
"whump" when it vents, liquid CO2 coming in contact with the surface of
Mars and its very low atmospheric pressure is going to resemble a geyser
going off- a huge mass of it will boil up the hole and spray skywards-
some becoming gas in the atmosphere, most instantly freezing and falling
as dry ice snow around the vent point.
The finding of the droplets of liquid CO2 trapped in ALH-84001 indicates
that it may formed deep underground in a thermal vent alright- but in a
thermal vent full of highly pressurized liquid CO2.
That right there shows there is, or was, liquid CO2 on Mars.
And another Martian meteorite, the Nahkla, also has liquid CO2 trapped
in it:
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/marsmet98/pdf/7002.pdf
Considering how few meteorites of Martian origin we have, finding it in
two is pretty significant.


I always suspect that this explains also the seemingly reluctance to
include any instruments on a lander which actually search for life.
Viking did so, and it "proved" there was no life, with the prompt result
that there was no spacecraft going to Mars for many years until we
managed to find all kinds of theories stating that the Viking
instruments might be wrong or mis-interpretated and since then we search
for all kinds of indirect evidence but not directly for signs of
microscopic life. You almost start believing that there was a plot to
destroy Beagle before it could mess things up by 'proving' once again
that life doesn't exist on Mars...



What I can't understand is why they just stick a decent high-powered
optical microscope on a lander. You go to the most desolate places on
earth, and you'll find recognizable biological forms in a soil sample.
Just look for something that has symmetry and isn't a crystal, and it's
almost certainly the remnants of life; you start seeing stuff like this,
and you know you've found something:
http://woodshole.er.usgs.gov/epubs/b...crofossils.jpg




And one unlikely thing gets piled on top of another unlikely thing to
try and shore up the watery Mars theory.


True, however this does NOT mean that the CO2 theory is MORE likely. If
you try to prove that CO2 in whatever form is creating these features
you run into the same kind of problems, you also need to 'invent' a lot
of (sometimes unlikely) circumstances to make that possible. Simple fact
is we don't have enough data...


We strongly suspect this is going on down at the Martian South Pole:
http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/200...with_carbo.php
I've been digging around today for what exactly we know about water on Mars.
They _suspect_ that there's a lot of it frozen underground in the polar
regions, but that's based on hydrogen detection like Clementine did on
the Moon, and hydrogen may mean water...or it may mean just hydrogen or
hydrates.
There's a small amount of water in the Martian atmosphere, but only
enough to cover the planet to a depth of 1/100 centimeter if it all
precipitated out at once:
http://www-mgcm.arc.nasa.gov/MarsToday/MarsWater.html
The concept of A mars with shallow seas on it leaves one obvious
question - where did all the water go?
Just like the end of the Biblical flood, there's a problem here...the
Martian oceans are missing. Who took all the water away? It was up to
the top of Mt. Ararat...er, Olympus Mons...and now? :-)
The Hellas Basin should be a skating rink, and water vapor in the
atmosphere should go berserk every time it warms up enough to start
sublimating into the atmosphere


Because we want water to be there, just like we want God to be there.
I think what we are going to find is a planet where most of what
occurs on Earth with H2O occurs on Mars with CO2.
So we might want to figure out life forms that live in, and are
basically composed of, liquid CO2 if we have hopes of life up there.


and hope our spacecraft does not produce so much heat that they have
boiled away before we can detect those lifeforms..


I was picturing a manned lander coming down at the South Pole of Mars
and its landing engines melting through the ice under it till they reach
the liquid CO2 layer... suddenly, the crew find themselves back in
Martian orbit, Jules Verne style. :-D

Pat

On Thu, 7 Dec 2006 19:33:39 -0600, Pat Flannery wrote
(in article ):

They _suspect_ that there's a lot of it frozen underground in the polar
regions, but that's based on hydrogen detection like Clementine did on the
Moon, and hydrogen may mean water...or it may mean just hydrogen or hydrates.

Molecular hydrogen would be almost impossible to exist on Mars. And I
don't think "hydrates" means what you think it does.

--
Herb Schaltegger
"You can run on for a long time . . . sooner or later, God'll cut you
down." - Johnny Cash
http://www.angryherb.net

Pat Flannery wrote:

But at the depth the "water" is exiting the side of the crater at, the
temperature is going to be near the mean Mars temperature at these
latitudes.... around -60 C. That's so cold that you'd need something as
freeze resistant as a 60-40 glycol/water mixture to keep it liquid:
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF6/680.html
Barring some sort of biological process or underground heating and
liquid water in these conditions becomes very unlikely.

I completely agree with you that all 'evidence' for liquid water flows
on Mars at *present* is just way too vague and seems very unlikely.
Unless they have some data which as yet has not been published I find it
way and way too early to make any claim like 'we found liquid water'.
What we see on those pictures could have been caused by lots of events
of which liquid water seems to me one of the most unlikely explanations.

Something else is 'has there been water in the (FAR) past', there are a
lot of surface features which still seem difficult to explain by
anything else then liquid water. Several complete 'oceans' of liquid CO2
seem to me just as difficult to explain as oceans of water. But time and
time again we just run into one thing: we do not have enough data.

What I can't understand is why they just stick a decent high-powered
optical microscope on a lander. You go to the most desolate places on
earth, and you'll find recognizable biological forms in a soil sample.
Just look for something that has symmetry and isn't a crystal, and it's
almost certainly the remnants of life; you start seeing stuff like this,
and you know you've found something:
http://woodshole.er.usgs.gov/epubs/b...crofossils.jpg

I often get the feeling that to them the worst possible event is sending
a high-publicity mission to mars to "search for life" and then
afterwards having to admit that the instruments were unable to find any
sign of microbes or whatever... That's more or less what happened with
the Viking landers and the end result will be that to the general public
the question of 'life on mars' has been solved, case closed, Mars is a
dead planet covered with rocks and nasty chemicals and why should we
send any more spacecraft to it? No more budget, end of mission.

If you like to get budget to send a spacecraft to Mars or any other
planet, just state that the planet 'might' harbour life and you stand a
change of at least getting mentioned somewhere in the press and getting
a budget for it. But NEVER say that your spacecraft is going to solve
the puzzle of whether or not there actually is life, searching for water
or something like that is okay, you can discuss endlessly about the
results and in the meantime send more and more spacecraft. From this
position the statements by the PAO seem understandable although they
don't have anything to do with science, just publicity to make sure you
will get budget for new missions.

One of the things I don't understand is why we not get a bit more of the
old Soviet mentality: stick to a proven design. The present marsrovers
turn out to be very sturdy and productive and although their airbag
landing is not very elegant, it has shown to get you down on the surface
even in rough conditions. Then just build ten or twelve more of these
rovers, same design but slightly different instruments, make them drive
a bit faster (now the navigation software has been improved) and give
them slightly more power to climb in and out of craters and just keep
sending them out two at a time at every possible launchwindow. Drop them
down in craters where you see these "water" flow gullies or at any other
place that looks interesting from orbit, there are so many features
which require a surface-inspection... Don't waste time and money on new
stationary lander-designs which might fail due to as yet unknown bugs
(aka MPL), or on big nuclear powered rovers which are too expensive to
send in larger amounts, make use of the experience we now get with the
present rovers and build on that!

Regards,

Geert.

Geert Sassen wrote in
:

One of the things I don't understand is why we not get a bit more of
the old Soviet mentality: stick to a proven design.

Because the Discovery program, under which these missions have been funded,
is based on competition between proposals. When different groups win, you
get different designs. You lose the advantage of sticking with proven
designs, but you gain the advantage of trying many different designs to see
what works best, and exploring the different corners of the design "trade
space".


--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

Geert Sassen wrote:



One of the things I don't understand is why we not get a bit more of
the old Soviet mentality: stick to a proven design. The present
marsrovers turn out to be very sturdy and productive and although
their airbag landing is not very elegant, it has shown to get you down
on the surface even in rough conditions. Then just build ten or twelve
more of these rovers, same design but slightly different instruments,
make them drive a bit faster (now the navigation software has been
improved) and give them slightly more power to climb in and out of
craters and just keep sending them out two at a time at every possible
launchwindow.

The only problems the present design has is that needs lots of sunlight
to make it work and needs the atmosphere to be thick enough over the
landing site to let the parachute slow it down enough.
These two constrains limit it to use to near Mars' equator in lowland
areas. It's only usable for around 5% of the total surface of Mars as it
presently exists.
But I agree, a series of fairly standardized probes that could be sent
to various parts of Mars would be great from both a budget and
reliability point of view.

Pat