OT news - Big Sheets of Water Ice Lie Just Beneath the Surface of Mars

[a425couple]

Big Sheets of Water Ice Lie Just Beneath the Surface of Mars
By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer | January 11, 2018 02:01pm ET

Big Sheets of Water Ice Lie Just Beneath the Surface of Mars
For the first time, high-resolution images show the three-dimensional
structure of massive ice deposits on Mars. This photo by the HiRISE
camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a detailed
subsection of an icy scarp on the Red Planet in enhanced color.
Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/USGS
Sizable deposits of water ice lurk just beneath the surface in some
regions of Mars, a new study reports.

The newfound sheets appear to contain distinct layers, suggesting that
studying them could shed considerable light on the Red Planet's climate
history, researchers said. And the ice is buried by just a few feet of
Martian dirt in places, meaning it might be accessible to future crewed
missions.

"I'm not familiar with resource-extraction technology, but this may be
information that's useful to people who are," study lead author Colin
Dundas, of the U.S. Geological Survey's Astrogeology Science Center in
Flagstaff, Arizona, told Space.com. [Photos: The Search for Water on Mars]

Dundas and his colleagues analyzed photos captured over the years by the
High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard NASA's
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). They identified eight locations where
erosion had exposed apparent glaciers, some of which extend 330 feet
(100 meters) or more into the Red Planet's subsurface.


These sites are steep, pole-facing slopes in Mars' midlatitudes, between
about 55 and 60 degrees both north and south of the equator. The
ice-harboring areas sport few craters, suggesting they're quite young,
geologically speaking, the researchers said.

Interestingly, scientists think that Mars' obliquity — the tilt of the
planet's axis relative to the plane of its orbit — has shifted a fair
bit over the past few million years, varying between about 15 and 35
degrees, Dundas said. (The Red Planet's obliquity is currently about 25
degrees; Earth's is 23.5 degrees.)

This high-resolution HiRISE image shows an icy scarp on Mars in the
context of a broader area.
This high-resolution HiRISE image shows an icy scarp on Mars in the
context of a broader area.
Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/USGS
"There've been suggestions that, when there's high obliquity, the poles
get heated a lot — they're tilted over and pointed more at the sun, and
so that redistributes ice toward the midlatitudes," Dundas said. "So,
what we may be seeing is evidence of that having happened in the past."

Researchers already knew that Mars harbors subsurface water ice, and
lots of it. For example, MRO's ground-penetrating Shallow Radar
instrument recently found a buried ice layer that covers more ground
than the state of New Mexico. (NASA's Phoenix lander also dug up some
ice near the Martian north pole in 2008, but it's unclear if that stuff
is part of a big sheet.)

But the newly analyzed HiRISE data give researchers more detailed looks
at such deposits, Dundas said.

"The take-home message is, these are nice exposures that teach us about
the 3D structure of the ice, including that the ice sheets begin
shallowly, and also that there are fine layers," he said.

The new study was published online today (Jan. 11) in the journal Science.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us
@Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.

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https://www.space.com/39357-mars-water-ice-near-surface.html

[a425couple]

On 1/12/2018 11:37 AM, a425couple wrote:
> Big Sheets of Water Ice Lie Just Beneath the Surface of Mars
> By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer | January 11, 2018 02:01pm ET
> Big Sheets of Water Ice Lie Just Beneath the Surface of Mars
> For the first time, high-resolution images show the three-dimensional
> structure of massive ice deposits on Mars.

> https://www.space.com/39357-mars-water-ice-near-surface.html

Scientists found accessible ice sheets on Mars, and it could be a
'game-changer' for colonizing the planet

Jeremy Berke
This image provided by NASA shows the plant Mars NASA via AP

NASA scientists discovered eight instances of ice exposed on the Martian
surface.
While scientists have long known about the red planet's sub-surface ice
sheets, this is the first time ice has been seen exposed and easily
accessible.
The ice could be a "game-changer" for human exploration and eventual
settlement on the red planet.


There may be a major source of easily accessible drinkable water on
Mars, according to a new study in the journal Science.

Using images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been
orbiting the planet since 2006, scientists working with the space agency
discovered ice sheets that are relatively pure and partially exposed on
the Martian surface.

Scientists have long known about the existence of subsurface ice on the
red planet and about major ice deposits on its frigid poles. But they
hadn't seen exposed ice on other parts of the planet's surface before.
The newly discovered ice deposits are thick sheets just under the
Martian surface, and parts of the sheets are exposed in eight sites on
steep slopes up to 100 meters tall.

Shane Byrne, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona and one
of the study's authors, told Reuters the discovery a potential
"game-changer" for human exploration of Mars.

Mars ice
A cross-section of a thick sheet of underground ice is exposed at the
steep slope that appears bright blue in this enhanced-color view of Mars
from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in this image released on January 11,
2018. NASA/JPL-Caltech/UA/USGS/Handout
"Here we have what we think is almost pure water ice buried just below
the surface. You don’t see a high-tech solution," Byrne said. "You can
go out with a bucket and shovel and just collect as much water as you need."

The scientists believe the ice is consolidated snow that was deposited
relatively recently in geologic terms.

The exposed portions of ice are located at mid-latitudes, where the
temperatures are a bit balmier for humans and robots to operate. Other
ice that exists at these latitudes is covered by layers of Martian dust,
or regolith. Those layers of loose rock make the sub-surface ice
extremely difficult to access, Colin Dundas, the study's leader and a
geologist with the US Geological Survey’s Astrogeology Science Center,
told Reuters.

"Previous ideas for extracting human-usable water from Mars were to pull
it from the very dry atmosphere or to break down water-containing
rocks," Byrne said. But because these newly discovered ice deposits are
so much more accessible, they could aid the foundation of a permanent
Mars base — or at least, could support future missions to study the planet.

Your move, Elon Musk.
SEE ALSO: Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars with SpaceX but has yet to
explain how people will survive there

More: Mars Mars Colonization NASA Ice

http://www.businessinsider.com/mars-ice-sheets-nasa-could-help-colonize-planet-2018-1

[Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha]

a425couple <a425c...@hotmail.com> wrote in
news:p3b2v...@news7.newsguy.com:

> On 1/12/2018 11:37 AM, a425couple wrote:
>> Big Sheets of Water Ice Lie Just Beneath the Surface of Mars
>> By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer | January 11, 2018
>> 02:01pm ET Big Sheets of Water Ice Lie Just Beneath the Surface
>> of Mars For the first time, high-resolution images show the
>> three-dimensional structure of massive ice deposits on Mars.
>> https://www.space.com/39357-mars-water-ice-near-surface.html
>
> Scientists found accessible ice sheets on Mars, and it could be
> a 'game-changer' for colonizing the planet
>
> Jeremy Berke
> This image provided by NASA shows the plant Mars NASA via AP
>

Heh. Yeah. That's gonna change the economics of "there's nothing we
can possibly do on Mars that isn't done more efficiently and cheaper
on Earth." Sure it is.

--
Terry Austin

Vacation photos from Iceland:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/QaXQkB

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

[a425couple]

On 1/12/2018 11:45 AM, a425couple wrote:
> On 1/12/2018 11:37 AM, a425couple wrote:
>> Big Sheets of Water Ice Lie Just Beneath the Surface of Mars
>> By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer | January 11, 2018 02:01pm ET
>> Big Sheets of Water Ice Lie Just Beneath the Surface of Mars
>> For the first time, high-resolution images show the three-dimensional
>> structure of massive ice deposits on Mars.
>> https://www.space.com/39357-mars-water-ice-near-surface.html
>
> Scientists found accessible ice sheets on Mars, and it could be a
> 'game-changer' for colonizing the planet

> Scientists have long known about the existence of subsurface ice on the
> red planet and about major ice deposits on its frigid poles. But they
>

> More: Mars Mars Colonization NASA Ice
>
> http://www.businessinsider.com/mars-ice-sheets-nasa-could-help-colonize-planet-2018-1

Speaking of Science
'A fantastic find': Mars hides thick sheets of ice just below the surface
By Ben Guarino January 11

Mars. (NASA/AP)
The slope rises as high as London's Big Ben tower. Beneath its ruddy
layer of dirt is a sheet of ice 300 feet thick that gives the landscape
a blue-black hue. If such a scene sounds otherworldly, it is. To visit
it, you'll have to travel to Mars.

Planetary scientists located eight of these geological features, called
scarps, on the Red Planet. An analysis of the scarps revealed that thick
ice hides just below the surface. This ice, the researchers say, could
be a tempting target for future exploration — as well as a valuable
resource for Earthlings camped out on Mars.

“We've found a new window into the ice for study, which we hope will be
of interest to those interested in all aspects of ice on Mars and its
history,” said Colin Dundas, a member of the U.S. Geological Survey’s
Astrogeology Science Center in Arizona and an author of a report
published Thursday in the journal Science.

It is not news that Mars is icy. In 2001, the Mars Odyssey spacecraft
arrived at the planet and began snooping for chemical signatures of ice.
The craft's gamma-ray spectrometer found telltale hydrogen, which
indicated Mars had enormous amounts of ice. As much as a third of the
Martian surface contains shallow ice. But remotely sensing elements such
as hydrogen could not reveal the depth and makeup of the ice.

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The newer Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mapped the surface in greater
detail. Dundas and his colleagues used its pictures to locate exposed
ice in small craters, glaciers and ice sheets. “The high-resolution data
has greatly improved our understanding of various ice-related land
forms,” he said.

These cliffs are “rare peeks into the subsurface of Mars, giving us
access to an undisturbed slice through Mars's ice in the mid-latitudes —
a fantastic find!” said Susan Conway, a planetary scientist at the
University of Nantes in France who was not involved with this research.


A color-enhanced scarp on Mars, showing the icy region in blue.
(NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/USGS)
Open University's Matt Balme, a planetary scientist in Britain who did
not participate in this study, said the key findings were the color
images of a bluish tint. That indicates a sub-layer that is “somehow
compositionally different” than the red dirt. It is unlikely that the
frozen sheets are a mix of water and soil. “If the conclusions of the
paper are correct,” he said, “you’re looking at something that's almost
pure ice.”


The scarps exist along the planet's middle latitudes, ruling out
glaciers that migrated from the poles. The study authors propose that
these ice sheets formed when thick snows blanketed Mars. Balme agreed
that snowfall probably created the ice over a period of a few thousand
years.

“We considered the possibility that we were seeing surface frost,”
Dundas said, “but the ice signatures persist through the summer.” The
buried ice revealed itself after the structures became unstable and
expanded. Those cliffs formed through a process called sublimation, in
which exposed ice turned directly into water vapor. Boulders and dust
that rested on the ice suddenly had their foundation vanish into the
atmosphere.

These slopes are unusually steep, Balme said, though he imagines that
the scarps look similar to glacial moraines on Earth.

The sheets' proximity to the surface makes them accessible, in theory,
to robot explorers. “This subsurface ice could contain valuable records
of the Martian climate, just like the Greenland and Antarctic ice
cores,” Conway said. In August, geochemists obtained
2.7-million-year-old ice samples from Antarctica — the oldest ever — and
they plan to study air bubbles trapped within them to learn about
Earth's prehistoric atmosphere.

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And flesh-and-blood explorers might benefit, too (though the middle
latitudes of Mars appear to be colder, less welcoming terrain than
regions closer to the equator). “If we were to send humans to live on
Mars for a substantial period of time, it would be a fantastic source of
water,” Balme said. Astronauts living in the pits would have a vital raw
material next door. All a thirsty astronaut would have to do would be to
go at the scarp with a hammer and, presto, fresh Martian ice chips.

[Quadibloc]

On Friday, January 12, 2018 at 2:33:40 PM UTC-7, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha wrote:

> Heh. Yeah. That's gonna change the economics of "there's nothing we
> can possibly do on Mars that isn't done more efficiently and cheaper
> on Earth." Sure it is.

No, it won't do that. But it would change the economics of whether or not human
settlement of Mars is utterly and inconceivably impractical, instead of just too
expensive for anyone to want to pay for it without a very good reason such as is
unlikely to be forthcoming.

That may seem like an irrelevant distinction, because either way adds up to 'it
isn't happening'... but in the latter case, it might not take too much to change
that.

It's nice to have options open.

John Savard

[Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha]

Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote in
news:f8c16c2a-2b7e-4505...@googlegroups.com:

> On Friday, January 12, 2018 at 2:33:40 PM UTC-7, Jibini Kula
> Tumbili Kujisalimisha wrote:
>
>> Heh. Yeah. That's gonna change the economics of "there's
>> nothing we can possibly do on Mars that isn't done more
>> efficiently and cheaper on Earth." Sure it is.
>
> No, it won't do that. But it would change the economics of
> whether or not human settlement of Mars is utterly and
> inconceivably impractical, instead of just too expensive for
> anyone to want to pay for it without a very good reason such as
> is unlikely to be forthcoming.

No. It wouldn't.

And you've snipped out all context. Again.

So you could lie about what was said.

Again.

Dumbass.