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Space Forum / Astronomy / July 2008Question about water on mars
Why is the water on mars prevented from evaporation by such a thin layer of dirt? Is not that dirt porous? Or is it somehow clumping together so much as to be vapour tight? Or is the water vapour making is freeze together? | Why is the water on mars prevented from evaporation by such a thin layer of dirt? Same reason the water under ice doesn't evaporate, it needs direct energy to stir up a molecule and make it float away. Ever see mist hovering over a river? | Is not that dirt porous? Yes, but opaque to sunlight. | Or is it somehow clumping together so much as to | be vapour tight? No. Just not enough heat to cause the vapour. | Or is the water vapour making is freeze together? It's bloody cold on Mars, the atmosphere is thin, there are no clouds as on Earth and Venus, it's a small planet far from the Sun where conditions are very different. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dew_point Dear Jan Panteltje: > Why is the water on mars prevented from evaporation > by such a thin layer of dirt? Consider that the dirt may have accumulated on top of a frozen lake, and what has been discovered is just stuff that has not sublimed yet from the lake's surface. > Is not that dirt porous? Or is it somehow clumping > together so much as to be vapour tight? Or is the > water vapour making is freeze together? Keep in mind also that "dirt" can be fabricated on Earth that actually collects moisture. A "zeolite" or "zeolyte". Not saying that this is what this is... since it is a banded structure... it probably isn't. David A. Smith > Why is the water on mars prevented from evaporation by such a thin > layer of dirt? Is not that dirt porous? Or is it somehow clumping > together so much as to be vapour tight? > Or is the water vapour making is freeze together? Because even that thin layer of "dirt" is enough to keep the ice in perpetual shade. On Jun 24, 2:49 pm, Agent Smith <agent-sm...@two-blocks-on-your- left.com> wrote: > > Why is thewateronmarsprevented from evaporation by such a thin > > layer of dirt? Is not that dirt porous? Or is it somehow clumping [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > Because even that thin layer of "dirt" is enough to keep the ice in > perpetual shade. Shaded h2o? (I don't think so) How many PPB of h2o are we talking about? - Brad Guth Brad_Guth Brad.Guth BradGuth > On Jun 24, 2:49 pm, Agent Smith <agent-sm...@two-blocks-on-your- > left.com> wrote: [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > Shaded h2o? (I don't think so) Does water have a property that doesn't allow it to exist in the shade? ?;(~ On Jun 27, 6:13 am, Agent Smith <agent-sm...@two-blocks-on-your- left.com> wrote: > > On Jun 24, 2:49 pm, Agent Smith <agent-sm...@two-blocks-on-your- > > left.com> wrote: [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > ?;(~ Water doesn't do well when exposed to such vacuum, not to mention solar and cosmic radiation isn't exactly an h2o keeper. Thus far, it seems their fancy and spendy mass spectrometer hasn't found 1 ppb of h2o to work with. I'm not surprised. They'll need to dig much deeper, like 100+ meters starting at the bottom of an extremely deep crater. - Brad Guth Brad_Guth Brad.Guth BradGuth > On Jun 27, 6:13 am, Agent Smith <agent-sm...@two-blocks-on-your- > left.com> wrote: [quoted text clipped - 25 lines] > dig much deeper, like 100+ meters starting at the bottom of an > extremely deep crater. Your numbers are off. The polar orbiter imaged water ice with a radar that only looks a few meters beneath the surface. Your general idea may be right, that the top layer may be dry ice, and we may have to get through that to get to the water ice. I'm more worried about a false negative. The water may be stable in glacier form, but I think the crystals they scratch off may sublimate immediately, before they can get past the blocker and into the measuring device. Our priceless lander may report the absence of ice because the experiment was designed wrong. They may even have to send another lander, just to find out what is the physics of why the "dirt" won't fall through the screen. They may have to design an extraction penetrator that will melt it's way into the glacier and suck up liquid or vapor for analysis, rather than trying to scrape off crystals with a tool badly designed for that purpose. Little shovels aren't intended to scrape ice off glaciers, because that's what grinders are for. They may have not thought the problem through suffucuently, and Mars may have metaphorically destroyed another mission. With water soluble salts sitting right there, and a positive radar spectrum, there's every reason to believe water is sitting right there too. There's every clue pointing to water, but not the water itself, which suggests a clumsy mistake. ;( And then there's the question of time. Just because water has occasionally existed on Mars for infrequent periods doesn't mean that life had enough time to even begin to evolve. I'm still in the camp of people who think that water existed but not life. Same for Enceladus, because it's so cold. The chemistry of life needs heat and light to evolve, and there's certainly not enough light out there, and possibly not enough heat, either. The only way we're going to find another habitable planet is around another star like ours, goverened by Bode's Law and an Earth, a Moon and a Jupiter, all in the same place. That's a pretty tall order, and the closest one may be a **long** way from here, possibly even far enough away that even TPF can't see it. That depends on whether it's design parameters will allow it to see the entire visible disk of the galaxy, details of which I'm not informed. (snip) > Same for Enceladus, because it's so cold. The chemistry of life needs > heat and light to evolve, and there's certainly not enough light out > there, and possibly not enough heat, either. (snip) You seem to miss that most of the life on Earth (if you go by cell count or cell mass) is never exposed to a bit of light. It lives permanently in rock or deep water. How are conditions 10 miles deep in the crust of Mars so very different than the conditions 10 miles deep in the crust of Earth? Most of Earth life would probably not notice the difference.  SignatureRegards, John Popelish > (snip) >> Same for Enceladus, because it's so cold. The chemistry of life [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > crust of Earth? Most of Earth life would probably not > notice the difference. Life on earth evolved in the comfortable places, and then adapted to the hostile places. There are no comfortable places on Mars and Enceladus. You're delusional, and you'll go to your grave claiming that there is life on Mars, despite repeated missions that find none. You belong in a psychiatric hospital or a prison, for defrauding the government out of taxpayer money and then wasting it on missions that were doomed to failure before your slutty great grandmother was even born. > John Popelish <jpopelish@rica.net> wrote: >> You seem to miss that most of the life on Earth (if you go >> by cell count or cell mass) is never exposed to a bit of [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > Life on earth evolved in the comfortable places, and then adapted to the > hostile places. There are no comfortable places on Mars and Enceladus. Are you claiming to know what was a comfortable place for the first life in Earth? I haven't heard of evidence for what sort of place that was, only hypotheticals. Have you found enough evidence to make a solid case that establishes where, on Earth, the first life began? Have you published this case? > You're delusional, and you'll go to your grave claiming that there is > life on Mars, despite repeated missions that find none. If you found in my above post, any claim that life exists on Mars, then I'm not the delusional one. I was just correcting you, when you said, "The chemistry of life needs heat and light to evolve...". I was simply informing you that most life on Earth, throughout its history, has been evolving in a complete absence of sunlight. Only the minor fraction that has adapted to surface conditions has evolved a direct or indirect need for sunlight. > You belong in a > psychiatric hospital or a prison, for defrauding the government out of > taxpayer money and then wasting it on missions that were doomed to > failure before your slutty great grandmother was even born. Wow, you display lots of delusion in that sentence. No manners, but plenty of delusion. Back to the topic under discussion: I would like to find out if life exists on Mars or any other planet we can explore, and if it does exist (or has existed there) also find out if it is (was) similar to life on Earth, chemically speaking, or different. On Earth, it appears that all life is descended from one or a few first forms. It fascinates me that other first forms might be possible and might lead to entirely different biochemistry. I am willing to pay my share of the cost of learning these things. Are you interested in finding these things out? Or would you rather not know? SignatureRegards, John Popelish > (snip)> Same for Enceladus, because it's so cold. The chemistry of life needs > > heat and light to evolve, and there's certainly not enough light out [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > > John Popelish That's actually a perfectly good analogy. Too bad the mainstream status quo doesn't give a tinkers damn what you or anyone else thinks. btw, there’s no biological/DNA need of going much over 100 meters deep unless it’s on our gamma saturated Selene/moon. - Brad Guth Brad_Guth Brad.Guth BradGuth On Jul 10, 6:46 am, Agent Smith <agent-sm...@two-blocks-on-your- left.com> wrote: > > On Jun 27, 6:13 am, Agent Smith <agent-sm...@two-blocks-on-your- > > left.com> wrote: [quoted text clipped - 33 lines] > be right, that the top layer may be dry ice, and we may have to get > through that to get to the water ice. As I'd said, going 100+ meters deep should do the trick. At the bottom of a deep enough crater may require drilling down a mere 10+ meters. > I'm more worried about a false negative. The water may be stable in > glacier form, but I think the crystals they scratch off may sublimate [quoted text clipped - 33 lines] > That depends on whether it's design parameters will allow it to see the > entire visible disk of the galaxy, details of which I'm not informed. Venus is still perfectly fine and dandy as is, with terawatts of renewable energy to behold just about anywhere, plus at least it has water that's easily accessible from within them acidic clouds. - Brad Guth Brad_Guth Brad.Guth BradGuth > On Jun 24, 2:49 pm, Agent Smith <agent-sm...@two-blocks-on-your- > left.com> wrote: [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > How many PPB of h2o are we talking about? Do you mean to say that you believe that underground water is not in the shade? On Jul 9, 4:35 pm, Agent Smith <agent-sm...@two-blocks-on-your- left.com> wrote: > > On Jun 24, 2:49 pm, Agent Smith <agent-sm...@two-blocks-on-your- > > left.com> wrote: [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > Do you mean to say that you believe that underground water is not in the > shade? The first few meters are essentially at vacuum (same as Mars atmosphere). Below 100 meters should be well enough radiation shielded and having a little pressure to work with, and it should be a few degrees warmer than dry-ice. - Brad Guth Brad_Guth Brad.Guth BradGuth > On Jul 9, 4:35 pm, Agent Smith <agent-sm...@two-blocks-on-your- > left.com> wrote: [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > shielded and having a little pressure to work with, and it should be a > few degrees warmer than dry-ice. Did I just understand you correctly to say that you think Martian sunlight penetrates a hundred meters into the ground? On Jul 10, 4:02 am, Agent Smith <agent-sm...@two-blocks-on-your- left.com> wrote: > > On Jul 9, 4:35 pm, Agent Smith <agent-sm...@two-blocks-on-your- > > left.com> wrote: [quoted text clipped - 30 lines] > Did I just understand you correctly to say that you think Martian > sunlight penetrates a hundred meters into the ground? No, but cosmic gamma does. The solar wind is what eliminated most of the Mars atmosphere, thereby insufficient atmospheric mass for shielding thy butt unless it's parked deep enough underground. - Brad Guth Brad_Guth Brad.Guth BradGuth > Why is the water on mars prevented from evaporation by such a thin layer of dirt? It isn't prevented, because there is not water or its vapor left to evaporate. > Is not that dirt porous? Or is it somehow clumping together so much as to > be vapour tight? > Or is the water vapour making is freeze together? Mars soil isn't vapor tight, and of other than dry-ice being somewhat sticky, water isn't causing that soil to clump. - Brad Guth Brad_Guth Brad.Guth BradGuth >> Why is the water on mars prevented from evaporation by such a thin >> layer of dirt? [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > Mars soil isn't vapor tight, and of other than dry-ice being somewhat > sticky, water isn't causing that soil to clump. It's static electricity. >>> Why is the water on mars prevented from evaporation by such a thin >>> layer of dirt? [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > >It's static electricity. One thing against that argument is that static electricity in dirt with minerals and water is shorted. >>>> Why is the water on mars prevented from evaporation by such a thin >>>> layer of dirt? [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > One thing against that argument is that static electricity in dirt > with minerals and water is shorted. The water is frozen; the salts aren't in the ice, and even if they were, they wouldn't have the mobility to conduct electricity. >>>> Mars soil isn't vapor tight, and of other than dry-ice being >>>> somewhat sticky, water isn't causing that soil to clump. [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] >The water is frozen; the salts aren't in the ice, and even if they were, >they wouldn't have the mobility to conduct electricity. Look at it dynamic, the ice evaporates through the mineral laden dirt, causing a conductive path in that. I am not saying that is so, but it could be. I would think that it could even (the evaporation) create some sort of cement or concrete.... that then closes off what is beneath it, and sticks together. Possible? >>>>> Mars soil isn't vapor tight, and of other than dry-ice being >>>>> somewhat sticky, water isn't causing that soil to clump. [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > causing a conductive path in that. > I am not saying that is so, but it could be. Wrong. > I would think that it could even (the evaporation) create some sort of > cement or concrete.... that then closes off what is beneath it, and > sticks together. Possible? Not even close. >>>>>> Mars soil isn't vapor tight, and of other than dry-ice being >>>>>> somewhat sticky, water isn't causing that soil to clump. [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > >Not even close. You would not be the local nutter posting under yet a new alias now would you? No reasoning, your reply is void. >>>>>>> Mars soil isn't vapor tight, and of other than dry-ice being >>>>>>> somewhat sticky, water isn't causing that soil to clump. [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > You would not be the local nutter posting under yet a new alias now > would you? No reasoning, your reply is void. I have reasoning, but I just didn't post it, because I'm tired of the local nutters who never listen to it, anyhow. If you want me to tutor you in high school chemistry, you have to hire me for my services and pay me a fair wage. This is not a classroom, and the bickering matches that pass for "dialogue" in here are a disgrace to the science community. Write me a check for $20, or send it to my paypal account, and I'll answer your question. >>>>> Mars soil isn't vapor tight, and of other than dry-ice being >>>>> somewhat sticky, water isn't causing that soil to clump. [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > or concrete.... that then closes off what is beneath it, and sticks together. > Possible? It doesn't evaporate, it sublimates. >>>>>> Mars soil isn't vapor tight, and of other than dry-ice being >>>>>> somewhat sticky, water isn't causing that soil to clump. [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > > It doesn't evaporate, it sublimates. Don't waste your energy. If he's dumb enough to think that salts dissolve in water vapor, he's never going to understand anything you say. >>>>>>> Mars soil isn't vapor tight, and of other than dry-ice being >>>>>>> somewhat sticky, water isn't causing that soil to clump. [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > dissolve in water vapor, he's never going to understand anything you > say. I suppose that is true, but on the off chance he thought it went through a liquid phase I thought I would use the right word for him to look up. |
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