Liquid Water on Mars

I saw there was a longer thread here that NASA scientists and the PAO
hyped evidence for recent water flow on Mars. Mainly done by sci.space
regular Pat Flannery with the notion that NASA & Co did a PR stand
with poor unbelivable science contradicted by other facts we know
from Mars. Mainly that liquid CO2 was more likely than water. I read
one recent post what in someway thanks Pat for his effort:

/sci/space/history 07.12.06, 22:33
"Mars Water" - The NASA PAO in action
(mike flugennock) wrote:
...
this morning. I actually got a kind of a sick kick out of this; by the
time "Today" went on the air, I'd already seen the press release and the
images and read a good portion of the thread on this group, including
Flannery's pointing out if _any_ liquid was flowing recently enough to
cut those channels, it _had_ to be CO2.


I dont know the most important post of the thread but I found this early
one by Pat that already shows basic shortages on the issue. Considering
the later thanks post it seems there was no sufficient corretive input.
So let me just adjust and add some basics:


Carbon dioxide - we know it exists in a gaseous state on Mars (it's most
of the atmosphere) in a solid form (the polar caps), and as we recently
found out, erupts in geysers at the polar regions as they warm in spring.
So if something's rolling down crater walls, its very probably liquid
CO2, not water.



No. Liquid CO2 does not exist on the surface of Mars.



Not in a stable form, but how about if a stream of it from a subsurface
pocket under pressure broke through the side of the crater and flowed
down it before vaporizing off into gas and freezing into dry ice?

To get liquid CO2 you need at least 5.11 bar pressure. Mars pressure
is closer to 5 mbar, that is 1000 times less. If 6 bar lCO2 gets
suddenly in 5 mbar it goes in explosive like expansion up to transsonic
speeds in the 100 m/s range. There is no way to carve out any gullies
on that speed. Its free flow, not gravity flow like the gullies showed.

Actually I`m not aware that lCO2 was ever suggested to carve the
gullies. The idea was rather that the lCO2 expands to a slurry of
gas and solid CO2. That slurry should flow like a pyroclastic flow
and carve out the gullies. This was suggested in 2001 after Mallin
presented a lot of gullies in 2000. But a JGR paper in 2002 with
extensive calculations ruled out any CO2 flow. Even a slurry
flow would be much to fast and forms different types fo features.

Further, the rapid lCO2 expansion would create a snowfield in the
crater rather then a gully. A major point was the origine of the large
amounts of lCO2 needed - Mallin found a lot of gullies. There is no
process known how the lCO2 reservoirs could be filled today. To survive
from ancient times seems impossible as there are to many processes to
empty them. Thats the state of the scientific lCO2 discussion I know of -
its dead. It seems a myth still around in press (BBC with anonymous
source) and usenet.


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. With all
of the speculation about this, the place should look like Yellowstone
National Park in the infrared spectrum, with volcanic activity keeping
things above freezing wherever you see these sorts of effects.
But we don't find active volcanos, and we don't find earthquakes. And we
haven't found a magnetic field either, which suggests this planet is
solid all the way through. And I'm having a hard time figuring out how
you get volcanic activity near the surface on a planet that doesn't have
a molten core.

Mars is volcanic active in present geological times. Crater counts by
Orbiter images of volcanic lava/mud flow got this result in Viking times.
It was recently confirmed by a more detailed analysis by Mars Express.
The Mars Express image PI said he see chances to get an image of an actual
eruption sometime. So its no story by NASA PAO.

Another evidence is a similar present age estimate of pseudocraters.
They result from water/lava interaction.

And remember the data from the Orbital Mechanics:

/sci/space/news March 6, 2003
(NASA PAO) RELEASE: 03-094

SCIENTISTS SAY MARS HAS LIQUID IRON CORE

New information about what is inside Mars shows the Red
Planet has a molten liquid-iron core, confirming the
interior of the planet has some similarity to Earth and
Venus. ...


Further the Methan detection (by an US team from Earth and an ESA one
by Mars Express) supports the presence of liquid water on mars. All
3 ways to create it (biological, volcanic or by olivine reaction) involved
liquid water.

The lack of large scale IR/thermal evidence may due to the very good
thermal isolation/inertia properties of the ice/regolith surface material.
Some small scale thermal evidence is here

http://www.scireview.de/mars/

it has links to basics on the liquid water topic too. There are a lot
more (and better) images of possible (temporary) lakes on Mars elsewhere.
The first gullies Mallin (MGS) found where at the "Aerobreak Crater".
It had a large lake like feature below the gullies covering most of the
crater floor.

Recent key basics were published here in usenet too:

/sci/astro, /alt/sci/planetary, /sci/bio/misc
Monday, November 07, 2005
Simulations Show Liquid Water Could Exist on Mars
Derek Sears - University of Arkansas
...
The University of Arkansas team placed the salt solutions in the
planetary environmental chamber simulating Mars-like conditions, and
then measured the evaporation rates at varying temperatures.

"There's a huge decrease in the evaporation rate the colder it gets,
more than anyone realized," Chittenden said. With the dissolved sodium
and calcium in the water, the freezing point for the brine mixtures
drops to 21 degrees below zero Celsius for salt water and 50 degrees
below zero for water containing calcium chloride.

Temperatures on Mars vary between 125 degrees below zero Celsius and 28
degrees above at different latitudes and different times of the day.
Thus, there is a possibility that liquid water could exist on the
planet's surface at different locations and times of day.

"Brine formation could considerably increase the stability of water on
Mars by both extending the temperature range over which liquid water is
stable to negative-40 degrees Celsius and by decreasing the evaporation
rates by two orders of magnitude," the researchers wrote.


If it had a major moon close in to it you could make some sort of an
argument for heating via tidal stress, but Phobos and Deimos aren't
going to do that by any stretch of the imagination.
Occam's razor is pointing toward CO2 being involved here. The planet has
CO2 all over the place.
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.

The large quantities of water ice NASA claimed were confirmed by ESAs Mars
Express. It found a small frozen ocean and large scale glacial flow.
The ocean may still be partly liquid under the ice.


This isn't how science works, this is how religion works.

Pat, that you are not well informed is one thing. That even the basics
went uncorrected here is more serious. Indeed, it may be like religion
works.

....

Pat


## CrossPoint v3.12d R ##

Perhaps you should calm down with the bashing. Science is about having
an open, objective mind.

Here's a science word for you: "clathrates".

On Dec 11, 9:14 am, kT wrote:
wrote:
I saw there was a longer thread here that NASA scientists and the PAO
hyped evidence for recent water flow on Mars. Mainly done by sci.space
regular Pat Flannery with the notion that NASA & Co did a PR stand
with poor unbelivable science contradicted by other facts we know
from Mars. Mainly that liquid CO2 was more likely than water. I read
one recent post what in someway thanks Pat for his effort:

/sci/space/history 07.12.06, 22:33
"Mars Water" - The NASA PAO in action
(mike flugennock) wrote:
...
this morning. I actually got a kind of a sick kick out of this; by the
time "Today" went on the air, I'd already seen the press release and the
images and read a good portion of the thread on this group, including
Flannery's pointing out if _any_ liquid was flowing recently enough to
cut those channels, it _had_ to be CO2.

I dont know the most important post of the thread but I found this early
one by Pat that already shows basic shortages on the issue. Considering
the later thanks post it seems there was no sufficient corretive input.
So let me just adjust and add some basics:

Carbon dioxide - we know it exists in a gaseous state on Mars (it's most
of the atmosphere) in a solid form (the polar caps), and as we recently
found out, erupts in geysers at the polar regions as they warm in spring.
So if something's rolling down crater walls, its very probably liquid
CO2, not water.

No. Liquid CO2 does not exist on the surface of Mars.

Not in a stable form, but how about if a stream of it from a subsurface
pocket under pressure broke through the side of the crater and flowed
down it before vaporizing off into gas and freezing into dry ice?

To get liquid CO2 you need at least 5.11 bar pressure. Mars pressure
is closer to 5 mbar, that is 1000 times less. If 6 bar lCO2 gets
suddenly in 5 mbar it goes in explosive like expansion up to transsonic
speeds in the 100 m/s range. There is no way to carve out any gullies
on that speed. Its free flow, not gravity flow like the gullies showed.

Actually I`m not aware that lCO2 was ever suggested to carve the
gullies. The idea was rather that the lCO2 expands to a slurry of
gas and solid CO2. That slurry should flow like a pyroclastic flow
and carve out the gullies. This was suggested in 2001 after Mallin
presented a lot of gullies in 2000. But a JGR paper in 2002 with
extensive calculations ruled out any CO2 flow. Even a slurry
flow would be much to fast and forms different types fo features.

Further, the rapid lCO2 expansion would create a snowfield in the
crater rather then a gully. A major point was the origine of the large
amounts of lCO2 needed - Mallin found a lot of gullies. There is no
process known how the lCO2 reservoirs could be filled today. To survive
from ancient times seems impossible as there are to many processes to
empty them. Thats the state of the scientific lCO2 discussion I know of -
its dead. It seems a myth still around in press (BBC with anonymous
source) and usenet.

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. With all
of the speculation about this, the place should look like Yellowstone
National Park in the infrared spectrum, with volcanic activity keeping
things above freezing wherever you see these sorts of effects.
But we don't find active volcanos, and we don't find earthquakes. And we
haven't found a magnetic field either, which suggests this planet is
solid all the way through. And I'm having a hard time figuring out how
you get volcanic activity near the surface on a planet that doesn't have
a molten core.

Mars is volcanic active in present geological times. Crater counts by
Orbiter images of volcanic lava/mud flow got this result in Viking times.
It was recently confirmed by a more detailed analysis by Mars Express.
The Mars Express image PI said he see chances to get an image of an actual
eruption sometime. So its no story by NASA PAO.

Another evidence is a similar present age estimate of pseudocraters.
They result from water/lava interaction.

And remember the data from the Orbital Mechanics:

/sci/space/news March 6, 2003
(NASA PAO) RELEASE: 03-094

SCIENTISTS SAY MARS HAS LIQUID IRON CORE

New information about what is inside Mars shows the Red
Planet has a molten liquid-iron core, confirming the
interior of the planet has some similarity to Earth and
Venus. ...

Further the Methan detection (by an US team from Earth and an ESA one
by Mars Express) supports the presence of liquid water on mars. All
3 ways to create it (biological, volcanic or by olivine reaction) involved
liquid water.

The lack of large scale IR/thermal evidence may due to the very good
thermal isolation/inertia properties of the ice/regolith surface material.
Some small scale thermal evidence is here

http://www.scireview.de/mars/

it has links to basics on the liquid water topic too. There are a lot
more (and better) images of possible (temporary) lakes on Mars elsewhere.
The first gullies Mallin (MGS) found where at the "Aerobreak Crater".
It had a large lake like feature below the gullies covering most of the
crater floor.

Recent key basics were published here in usenet too:

/sci/astro, /alt/sci/planetary, /sci/bio/misc
Monday, November 07, 2005
Simulations Show Liquid Water Could Exist on Mars
Derek Sears - University of Arkansas
...
The University of Arkansas team placed the salt solutions in the
planetary environmental chamber simulating Mars-like conditions, and
then measured the evaporation rates at varying temperatures.

"There's a huge decrease in the evaporation rate the colder it gets,
more than anyone realized," Chittenden said. With the dissolved sodium
and calcium in the water, the freezing point for the brine mixtures
drops to 21 degrees below zero Celsius for salt water and 50 degrees
below zero for water containing calcium chloride.

Temperatures on Mars vary between 125 degrees below zero Celsius and 28
degrees above at different latitudes and different times of the day.
Thus, there is a possibility that liquid water could exist on the
planet's surface at different locations and times of day.

"Brine formation could considerably increase the stability of water on
Mars by both extending the temperature range over which liquid water is
stable to negative-40 degrees Celsius and by decreasing the evaporation
rates by two orders of magnitude," the researchers wrote.

If it had a major moon close in to it you could make some sort of an
argument for heating via tidal stress, but Phobos and Deimos aren't
going to do that by any stretch of the imagination.
Occam's razor is pointing toward CO2 being involved here. The planet has
CO2 all over the place.
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.

The large quantities of water ice NASA claimed were confirmed by ESAs Mars
Express. It found a small frozen ocean and large scale glacial flow.
The ocean may still be partly liquid under the ice.

This isn't how science works, this is how religion works.

Pat, that you are not well informed is one thing. That even the basics
went uncorrected here is more serious. Indeed, it may be like religion
works.Being uninformed hasn't stopped Nick Hoffman from being irrational, so
there's no evidence it will stop Pat Flannery from being irrational too.

They're geeks. Geeks are like that. Irrational is what they do best.

http://cosmic.lifeform.org- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -

http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/...ndex.html#Fig3

Take it up with the professionals.

On Dec 11, 9:14 am, kT wrote:
wrote:
I saw there was a longer thread here that NASA scientists and the PAO
hyped evidence for recent water flow on Mars. Mainly done by sci.space
regular Pat Flannery with the notion that NASA & Co did a PR stand
with poor unbelivable science contradicted by other facts we know
from Mars. Mainly that liquid CO2 was more likely than water. I read
one recent post what in someway thanks Pat for his effort:

/sci/space/history 07.12.06, 22:33
"Mars Water" - The NASA PAO in action
(mike flugennock) wrote:
...
this morning. I actually got a kind of a sick kick out of this; by the
time "Today" went on the air, I'd already seen the press release and the
images and read a good portion of the thread on this group, including
Flannery's pointing out if _any_ liquid was flowing recently enough to
cut those channels, it _had_ to be CO2.

I dont know the most important post of the thread but I found this early
one by Pat that already shows basic shortages on the issue. Considering
the later thanks post it seems there was no sufficient corretive input.
So let me just adjust and add some basics:

Carbon dioxide - we know it exists in a gaseous state on Mars (it's most
of the atmosphere) in a solid form (the polar caps), and as we recently
found out, erupts in geysers at the polar regions as they warm in spring.
So if something's rolling down crater walls, its very probably liquid
CO2, not water.

No. Liquid CO2 does not exist on the surface of Mars.

Not in a stable form, but how about if a stream of it from a subsurface
pocket under pressure broke through the side of the crater and flowed
down it before vaporizing off into gas and freezing into dry ice?

To get liquid CO2 you need at least 5.11 bar pressure. Mars pressure
is closer to 5 mbar, that is 1000 times less. If 6 bar lCO2 gets
suddenly in 5 mbar it goes in explosive like expansion up to transsonic
speeds in the 100 m/s range. There is no way to carve out any gullies
on that speed. Its free flow, not gravity flow like the gullies showed.

Actually I`m not aware that lCO2 was ever suggested to carve the
gullies. The idea was rather that the lCO2 expands to a slurry of
gas and solid CO2. That slurry should flow like a pyroclastic flow
and carve out the gullies. This was suggested in 2001 after Mallin
presented a lot of gullies in 2000. But a JGR paper in 2002 with
extensive calculations ruled out any CO2 flow. Even a slurry
flow would be much to fast and forms different types fo features.

Further, the rapid lCO2 expansion would create a snowfield in the
crater rather then a gully. A major point was the origine of the large
amounts of lCO2 needed - Mallin found a lot of gullies. There is no
process known how the lCO2 reservoirs could be filled today. To survive
from ancient times seems impossible as there are to many processes to
empty them. Thats the state of the scientific lCO2 discussion I know of -
its dead. It seems a myth still around in press (BBC with anonymous
source) and usenet.

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. With all
of the speculation about this, the place should look like Yellowstone
National Park in the infrared spectrum, with volcanic activity keeping
things above freezing wherever you see these sorts of effects.
But we don't find active volcanos, and we don't find earthquakes. And we
haven't found a magnetic field either, which suggests this planet is
solid all the way through. And I'm having a hard time figuring out how
you get volcanic activity near the surface on a planet that doesn't have
a molten core.

Mars is volcanic active in present geological times. Crater counts by
Orbiter images of volcanic lava/mud flow got this result in Viking times.
It was recently confirmed by a more detailed analysis by Mars Express.
The Mars Express image PI said he see chances to get an image of an actual
eruption sometime. So its no story by NASA PAO.

Another evidence is a similar present age estimate of pseudocraters.
They result from water/lava interaction.

And remember the data from the Orbital Mechanics:

/sci/space/news March 6, 2003
(NASA PAO) RELEASE: 03-094

SCIENTISTS SAY MARS HAS LIQUID IRON CORE

New information about what is inside Mars shows the Red
Planet has a molten liquid-iron core, confirming the
interior of the planet has some similarity to Earth and
Venus. ...

Further the Methan detection (by an US team from Earth and an ESA one
by Mars Express) supports the presence of liquid water on mars. All
3 ways to create it (biological, volcanic or by olivine reaction) involved
liquid water.

The lack of large scale IR/thermal evidence may due to the very good
thermal isolation/inertia properties of the ice/regolith surface material.
Some small scale thermal evidence is here

http://www.scireview.de/mars/

it has links to basics on the liquid water topic too. There are a lot
more (and better) images of possible (temporary) lakes on Mars elsewhere.
The first gullies Mallin (MGS) found where at the "Aerobreak Crater".
It had a large lake like feature below the gullies covering most of the
crater floor.

Recent key basics were published here in usenet too:

/sci/astro, /alt/sci/planetary, /sci/bio/misc
Monday, November 07, 2005
Simulations Show Liquid Water Could Exist on Mars
Derek Sears - University of Arkansas
...
The University of Arkansas team placed the salt solutions in the
planetary environmental chamber simulating Mars-like conditions, and
then measured the evaporation rates at varying temperatures.

"There's a huge decrease in the evaporation rate the colder it gets,
more than anyone realized," Chittenden said. With the dissolved sodium
and calcium in the water, the freezing point for the brine mixtures
drops to 21 degrees below zero Celsius for salt water and 50 degrees
below zero for water containing calcium chloride.

Temperatures on Mars vary between 125 degrees below zero Celsius and 28
degrees above at different latitudes and different times of the day.
Thus, there is a possibility that liquid water could exist on the
planet's surface at different locations and times of day.

"Brine formation could considerably increase the stability of water on
Mars by both extending the temperature range over which liquid water is
stable to negative-40 degrees Celsius and by decreasing the evaporation
rates by two orders of magnitude," the researchers wrote.

If it had a major moon close in to it you could make some sort of an
argument for heating via tidal stress, but Phobos and Deimos aren't
going to do that by any stretch of the imagination.
Occam's razor is pointing toward CO2 being involved here. The planet has
CO2 all over the place.
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.

The large quantities of water ice NASA claimed were confirmed by ESAs Mars
Express. It found a small frozen ocean and large scale glacial flow.
The ocean may still be partly liquid under the ice.

This isn't how science works, this is how religion works.

Pat, that you are not well informed is one thing. That even the basics
went uncorrected here is more serious. Indeed, it may be like religion
works.Being uninformed hasn't stopped Nick Hoffman from being irrational, so
there's no evidence it will stop Pat Flannery from being irrational too.

They're geeks. Geeks are like that. Irrational is what they do best.

http://cosmic.lifeform.org- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -