Water Ice On Mars

Passion 06-23-2008

Scientists have figured out the mysterious white substance unearthed by NASA's Phoenix lander on Mars. It's frozen water. The breakthrough came last week when Phoenix's stereo camera caught the substance in the act of disappearin

Bathed in martian sunlight for four days, the white substance sublimated--i.e., it transformed from solid to gas without passing through the liquid state. This is how water behaves on Mars. Atmospheric pressure on the Red Planet is so low (1% that of Earth), it rarely allows H2O to exist in liquid form on the planet's surface; solid and gas are the only options. Some readers have asked, how do we know the white substance is not frozen CO2 (dry ice) instead of frozen water? Answer: Phoenix's landing site is too warm for dry ice. The average daily temperature is about -70 F while dry ice requires temperatures lower than about -109 F.

Finding water was one of the key goals of the Phoenix mission. Although H2O has trouble flowing as a liquid on the surface of Mars, it may be able to liquify, from time to time, just below the surface, providing a habitat for martian microbes. Exciting stuff! Stay tuned as the digging continues.

Raven

The funny thing about this is when they first put this out. The scientific discovery of "white stuff".

hugo281

lol its looks more like sugar than Ice water but still looks cool though

spawnschickishot

omfg this soo excites me i was excited when the probe landed and was able to take pitures! i was thinking omg who knows what they can find! although im too sure if they would tell us if they find anything too exciting! lol but who knows!! this is soo kool just think it could be a posssibility that life forms could exist some where so far!!! whoooo this floats my boat!!

hugo281

lol right!!! I don't know if yall heard on the news the other day but on Fox News Channel, they were saying that scientists may have found another earth just outside this solar system and that they were going to send the probe to where it is supposedly to find out if its true and if its just like this planet, but the probe will take 5 years to get to where this planet is so yeah I can wait to see that, but probably in 5 years I would be like uh damn its not there yet?!