digg

Join DiggAbout
All » Science » Space
See the original image at apod.nasa.gov

APOD: Vanishing Act

apod.nasa.gov — Compare these two close-up pictures taken on sol 20 (left) and sol 24 of a trench dug in the Martian surface by NASA's Phoenix Lander. Those sols of the Phoenix Mission (a sol is a Martian day), correspond to June 15 and 18 on planet Earth

Bury
show profanity settings
expand all
  • ryandroth, on 06/21/2008, -3/+20This pretty much made my friday 10x better.
    • strictnein, on 06/21/2008, -0/+10Yeah, it was truly sublime!
    • cl2yp71c, on 06/22/2008, -0/+1Your life seems extremely....ermmm....exciting.
    • macosta5811, on 06/22/2008, -0/+2And for me, my Saturday!
    • DarkDx, on 06/22/2008, -1/+2Then your life must be sad because:

      1) We already knew that there was ice in mars since a ***** of time ago.
      2) The REAL excitement here is that we will be able to examine for the first time.

      In other words:

      1) There's ice on mars = yawn.
      2) The rover found ice on mars = yawn.
      3) The rover analyzed the ice and found bacteria/life = OMFGWTFBBQ!!111
  • earthrocks, on 06/21/2008, -2/+7It must be everywhere...but how do we know it's water ice instead of something else such as dry ice? Isn't it cold enough to freeze carbon dioxide where the lander is digging? I heard comments on NPR to the effect that it was water ice.
  • silfiriel, on 06/21/2008, -2/+37I just find it amazing the very own fact that we have a decent photo of the martian soil, where human have dugg (well, in a way, humans). Mars seems so near right now.
    • roomforpanic, on 06/21/2008, -1/+23Hold me.
      • justice7, on 06/21/2008, -3/+4You win the internet today!
        • clemtinite, on 06/21/2008, -5/+1Doesn't he? But please don't point things like this out as it completely undermines any comedic value this guys post might have had to the thread as a whole.
    • rmmcclay, on 06/22/2008, -0/+1I wonder if "soil" is the correct term. Doesn't soil consist of organic material?
      • GiggleStick, on 06/22/2008, -0/+1Well, they can't call it Earth. And Dirt sounds bad. What are we left with? Sand, Dust, Very Small Rocks?
        • Milesp707, on 06/22/2008, -1/+0Well...if we call Earth's soil, "Earth", because it is part of the Earth, does that mean we call Mar's "soil", "Mars"?
        • Monkeydew06, on 06/23/2008, -1/+1Churches, churches!
        • Monkeydew06, on 06/24/2008, -0/+1I'm sad nobody got my post... he said, "Very Small Rocks", I said "Churches, Churches", and was hoping for a "lead! Lead!" then a final "A DUCK!".

          You disappointmented me digg.
  • madgravity, on 06/21/2008, -5/+7Cool!
  • carmalrio, on 06/21/2008, -6/+7I can see that those crystals vanishes from Sol 20 to Sol 24. Can somebody here verify what time in Sol 20 and Sol 24 these pictures have taken? I just can't believe that the shadows are almost 100% similar.
    • to4sty, on 06/21/2008, -0/+11Since the shadows are very similar it should be apparent the pictures were taken at nearly the same time on different days. (This would be like taking a picture of a tree at noon today and noon three days from now.)
    • sevenvt, on 06/21/2008, -5/+4why would people negative dig your comment really... lol i had a similar question and got negged into the ground. People dont like questions lol

      i imagine they probably did time it exactly for sun position so the photos would be comparable in this manner, if the shadow had spread different across the trench the photos would be harder to compare.
    • kalleg, on 06/21/2008, -0/+1Good question! (I wondered the same thing.) The pictures must have been taken at the same time of day. If you look carefully, you can see that the shadows on the sol 24 picture are slightly longer. The sun doesn't rise as high in the sky - the Martian winter is approaching. It's clearer on the animation - http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/253084main_dodo ...
      • shakdang, on 06/21/2008, -0/+1perfectly reasonable answer, thanks.
    • shakdang, on 06/21/2008, -0/+1yep ,same question here .. I was about to post a comment good thing I saw yours first.
      Don't want to sound like a conspiracy weaver, I am excited as anyone else but I have this darned inquisitive mind that just want to be sure that it really is so!
  • Jake81499, on 06/21/2008, -13/+3How sure are they that this isn't frozen Carbon Dioxide? It would seem more likely that Carbon Dioxide would evaporate at those temperatures and water ice would stay solid even after being exposed to sunlite and the thin atmosphere.

    And just for the fun of it...

    If it's carbon dioxide shouldn't the atmosphere be boiling hot???? LOL!!! Poo on you Al Gore!
    • nwerneck, on 06/21/2008, -0/+7The curious reader would like to know that the atmosphere pressure on Mars is about 6% that of Earth, much thinner. On Venus, on the other hand, we can find a more frightening scenario, conditions similar to Al Gore's fears. There we also have an atmosphere rich in CO2, but with a pressure almost 100 times that of Earth, thick enough to generate the strongest greenhouse effect in the Solar System.
  • nwerneck, on 06/21/2008, -8/+1I would have appreciated a comment in APOD about whether it is water-ice or CO2-ice... First the press talked about how they were pretty much sure to find ice, but were uncertain about the concentration of water. Then they show these pictures and start talking already about having found water. Do they think we are dumb?? They say that it "sublimated", is this expected to happen in Mars with water? Is the pressure there right now below or above the triple point of water?

    And more, in the animation I saw the pictures were not exactly aligned. Where are the great computer vision whizes?...
    • Cyberdactyl, on 06/21/2008, -0/+3In an atmosphere close to a vacuum, and at higher temps such as at the surface, sublimation is expected to be highly accelerated whether it be di-hydrogen oxide or carbon dioxide.
    • noahhoward, on 06/21/2008, -0/+2From the Phoenix herself (sort of) via Twitter:

      "MarsPhoenix CO2 vs. H20 ice: Temp too high and pressure too low for CO2 ice. Sci team explains at 10a PDT/1p EDT live audio here: www.nasa.gov/newsaudio 09:45 AM June 20, 2008 from web "

    • sevenvt, on 06/21/2008, -0/+1Mars surface pressure .8 kPa or like... well might as well be vac for the purposes of water density.
      Earth surface pressure 101.3 kPa or like 760 torr
      Yeah... gas is a pretty easy thing to be when you are water on mars in comparison to earth.
  • Corr0sive, on 06/21/2008, -15/+1WHOA!, if you cross you eyes they white looks like Charles Manson
  • D14BL0, on 06/21/2008, -3/+9Sublimation or martian trickery? You decide!
  • ChrisAlbon, on 06/21/2008, -1/+2begin{serious question}

    Why haven't they used all of the laboratory tools that are on the Phoenix? I mean, it is great they found water, but I thought the arm was just a tool to get dirt into the machine.

    end{serious question}
    • Sornos, on 06/21/2008, -1/+7Yeah....They missed the hole. Funny we can land a probe 56 million kilometers away but can't get a scoop to drop dirt in a chute.
    • crypticcipher, on 06/21/2008, -1/+8Its because the ovens are single use meaning that they either become contaminated or consumed by the actual analysis. There are only eight ovens; therefore, they can only run eight chemical composition tests total. I think NASA doesn't want to waste these tests early which is why they are relying on observation first to determine points of interest rather than burn out the equipment with nothing to show for it. The first bake test was inconclusive, so they are being more careful with only seven more chemical composition tests left.
      • lolwutpear, on 06/22/2008, -0/+1Informed responses? On MY Digg?
      • GiggleStick, on 06/22/2008, -0/+2Yeah, but what if they arm suddenly stops working. That's not unfeasible nor unlikely. Then they would have completely wasted any opportunity. I think they need to do at least one analysis soon. Although I don't really worry about it. I'm fairly sure they have put more thought into it than I have.

        Of course there is that glaring example of forgetting to convert to metric, and the comet dust probe where they put the G-sensor in backwards so it didn't detect re-entry and fire the parachute. Maybe I'm affording them undue credit.
        • crypticcipher, on 06/22/2008, -0/+0It may not be unfeasible nor unlikely but it also has a relatively low probability of failure at this point considering it is now in the environment it was designed, tested and tuned for.

          Look at the Voyager missions and the Spirit and Opportunity missions and you will see that NASA is capable of extending a mission far in excess of its original goals and design specifications. Yes, they have failures, but who doesn't? Now that Phoenix is in place, it could conceivably collect scientific data for years.

          In that context, I would expect another bake test in a few weeks to a month with tests every six to eight weeks until that particular equipment has been exhausted.
  • Cyberdactyl, on 06/21/2008, -2/+5I'm sure they will scrape the areas of white again to see if the resulting debris sublimates as well.
  • pitdog, on 06/21/2008, -11/+2Mysterious white powder...just like under a nose of some so called celebrity these days.
  • sexMeUp, on 06/21/2008, -17/+1Sorry I dont get it, what is the significance here ............................................................................... ?
    • Cyberdactyl, on 06/21/2008, -0/+9Uh. . .water.
    • BigW, on 06/21/2008, -1/+1When we do a manned trip to Mars we may not have to take so much water along. Although you'd need water for the space part of the journey (and its been suggested that water could be used to radiation shield the spacecraft).
      But the bigger part is that once you get there you could set up a greenhouse to grow plants and use the water from there instead of water you had brought.
      It would be a real boon to manned Mars missions to have water available at the landing site....
      • BigW, on 06/21/2008, -0/+1Forgot to mention. The water could also be used to make oxygen for breathing, through electrolysis. But then again, thats what the plants would be doing too.
        • sexMeUp, on 06/22/2008, -2/+0this all sounds like ***** to me. If water was already there, there would already be organisms.

          and how can we trust the water thats there, it could be poisonis.
  • sevenvt, on 06/21/2008, -11/+2Well, love the pictures and their implications but...

    Looks like the pictures were taken at the exact same point on the 4th martian sol as the first, because the shadow is in the exact same place...
    Plus there was an absence of wind apparently for 3 earth days on that spot in mars, because well... every last grain is in almost the exact spot in both pictures.

    Never been a conspiracy theorist but, i wish these pics came with more information.
    • ParticleMan420, on 06/21/2008, -0/+4you could get off your lazy ass and look it up, dont rely on digg for ALL of your info.
      thats how conspiracies are started anyway, some douchebag gets some idea in his head, claims it as fact, and never actually bothers to look at any real info and refuses to believe anything 'official'
  • Sfenton, on 06/21/2008, -11/+5These Comments Suck.
  • StiGUP, on 06/21/2008, -7/+2Get your fresh Mars water here....only $250 a bottle.....
  • TracerMan, on 06/21/2008, -0/+9Why haven't the white matter at the top of the soil evaporated? (this is a serious question).

    • sevenvt, on 06/21/2008, -0/+2looks like it changed shape slightly over the 4 sols, but a very good question, could be water mixed with other things like salt, but that would make sublimation quicker and would leave behind just the white salt instead of what appears to be still ice... but it could be the top of a larger chunk as well.
    • matt510, on 06/21/2008, -0/+3I think one thing we have to remember is that these are brand new images that haven't even been analyzed that much by NASA or U of A. Usually we don't see results/images/information about such things until a lot of the analysis is done. We are getting it as they do the analysis, not after. So I think your question is a great one that NASA is still probably working on. I would probably agree with sevenvt though, could be a larger block of ice that the smaller pieces were chipped off of but that can't sublimate because the block is still cold enough... could be salt... could be something else. I imagine it will only be time until we know.
  • rafaelfreitas, on 06/21/2008, -2/+1Great! If something like the "doomsday machine" destroys the Earth, we can now think of moving to Mars.
  • kenwould, on 06/21/2008, -7/+1Looks photoshopped to me. You're telling me in 3 days the shadow doesn't change on Mars?
    • matt510, on 06/21/2008, -0/+5You never took science classes did you?
  • Boarhead, on 07/18/2008, -5/+1TA-DA!!!!!!
  • kinerry, on 06/21/2008, -3/+2Looks like a gust of wind covered it
    • Urgoz, on 06/21/2008, -0/+1If a gust of wind covered it then why didn't the soil around the ice change? It's obvious there has been no wind activity.
    • superkendall, on 06/21/2008, -2/+2A gust of wind IN THE SHELTERED DEPRESSION?
  • danomagnum, on 06/21/2008, -0/+5I love that the scale is 2/3".
    • yaddayaddayoda, on 06/21/2008, -2/+2Or they could have made it simpler and made it 17 mm.
  • JamesMatt, on 06/21/2008, -2/+4someone better tell david bowie................
  • fudged71, on 06/21/2008, -3/+3I saw an animation somewhere of this. Anybody have a link, or can make the Gif? it is more impressive than "spot the difference"
  • mordea, on 06/21/2008, -1/+1Isn't it possible that what we see in the first picture is dirt that later crumbled from wind?
    • shakdang, on 06/21/2008, -0/+1such strong wind should at least 'move' the lose dirt as well .. but the peaks and piles around the trench are the same, which begs the question, previous mission to mars sent photos of ;dust devils' and erratic weather conditions. does this mean such weather doesn't exist where phoenix has landed?
  • matt510, on 06/21/2008, -0/+3Here is the latest article from the Phoenix mission talking more about the confirmation: http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/06_20_pr.php
  • whitehatlurker, on 06/21/2008, -0/+1Is there enough separation between camera positions to get a stereo-optic view from the photos? I think I can see it, but it may just be the other differences between photos tricking me.
  • ndullum, on 06/21/2008, -0/+1finally were going to mars for sure now... Of course we have to go back to the moon first
  • superkendall, on 06/21/2008, -3/+1That's nothing, watch an overhead video of a nice car parked outside in Chicago overnight.

    Damn ice-stealing kids.
  • KiwiMark, on 06/21/2008, -3/+1photos or it's fake.
  • mofw, on 06/21/2008, -0/+1A thirsty martian picked them up to put in his scotch.
  • gainestr, on 06/21/2008, -2/+0Am I missing something? Wasn't it in Chemistry class 101 where we learned that water is H20 (One molecule of water has two hydrogen atoms covalently bonded to a single oxygen atom. - Wikipedia)?
    Now I want to know, if it really is water, where did the Oxygen atom come from? Isn't it true that Oxygen can not be sustained in Mars atmosphere? Wouldn't the Oxygen atom split from the Hydrogen in this type of environment regardless of it being covered up in a shallow grave of dirt?
    This isn't water people, It might be some other form of gas in a frozen state but to consider this water is absurd.
    • jowSithm, on 06/21/2008, -0/+0The bonds between the oxygen and hydrogen in water are some of the strongest going. These two are quite difficult to separate. If they weren't, water would have been the fuel of choice for eons as hydrogen and oxygen are also some of the most reactive elements going. Lock them together though, and they are extremely stable. I'm not sure about the sustainability of oxygen on Mars, but it is entirely possible that what is not chemically locked up would be lost from the Martian atmosphere. I'm pretty sure hydrogen does this here on Earth (may be wrong). There is no reason why it can't be water. If it was any other frozen gas or whatever, it would melt at a different temperature than water would. Water, like everything else, requires a specific amount of energy to heat/melt/evaporate. It's like a fingerprint. If it melts after such and such an amount of energy is added, it has to be water.

      not a scientist
    • jowSithm, on 06/21/2008, -0/+0As to where the oxygen (and hydrogen and water and everything else) came from, my guess is the same place that we got ours. (They were all here looooong before we were, or life existed on Earth).
    • JackHarkness, on 06/22/2008, -0/+3WTf are you on about. "The atmosphere on Mars consists of 95% carbon dioxide, 3% nitrogen, 1.6% argon, and contains traces of oxygen, water, and methane."- wiki The martian soil's characteristic red color comes from iron oxides. there is absolutely no reason why oxygen atoms wouldn't form molecules on mars.

      The high concentration of oxygen we breathe on earth is from photosynthesis.
  • jellygraph, on 06/22/2008, -0/+1Were they taken at the same time of the day, 4 martian days later? Because the shadows seem to be cast exactly the same.
    • jowSithm, on 06/22/2008, -0/+0The shadow is slightly different. Not much though. If you take a picture at the same time each day (Sol), the shadows wont appear to have moved much (although they have).
  • bouche, on 06/22/2008, -2/+4I've got news for you. There is an RSS feed for the APOD photos that you can subscribe to and spare us on digg from seeing APOD every single frikkin' day.

    Who's going to help me bury these? I can't be the only one that sees how ridiculous the APOD post daily to digg is.
    • matt510, on 06/22/2008, -2/+2I've got news for you: they are going to kee being dugg because they are quality articles that SHOULD appear on digg.

      Grow up, if you don't like APOD, skip the article. There are plenty of other crap articles for you to read out there. Don't whine when there is actually a good one. I know scrolling past ONE entire article every day might be difficult for you, but I have a feeling you can manage.
  • SpinCaster, on 06/22/2008, -0/+0Wish I saw this in the morning would have made my drive better.Can't wait scrape and analyze the stuff!!!!
  • MRCAB, on 06/22/2008, -1/+1you just know there's people out there jumping all over this, that aliens took them when the camera was off :-O
  • H3000, on 06/23/2008, -0/+0I'm thinkin' that the Martians probably stole the ice to make Marsgaritas.
  •  

    Login or register to add a comment

    Create a new account or login to join in the conversation on Digg. You'll also be able to Digg stories to help promote things you like.


© Digg Inc. 2008 — Content posted by Digg users is dedicated to the public domain.
DIGG, DIGG IT, DUGG, DIGG THIS, Digg graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, scripts, and other service names are the trademarks of Digg Inc.