Dawn Arrives at Ceres

Mission controllers have confirmed that the planetary exploration spacecraft Dawn has entered orbit around the largest object in the asteroid belt, Ceres. 

Does Water Still Flow on Mars?

when scientists speak of running water on Mars, it is taken for granted that it flowed millions if not, billions of yours ago.   But according to a CNN post:

• Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology are looking at dark features on Martian slopes that are finger-shaped. They appear and disappear seasonally.

The research scientist said that this is the best indication that Mars has running water right now.  The group first reported that there was evidence of slow moving, syrup like salt water flows in 2011.  

And that seems to be the case here on a larger scale.  The water would still be salty and   carrying 

a significant amount of ferric sulfate which is a common chemical on Mars.

It is still a far cry from water that could be used without treatment,  but it is positive indication that there will be resources available in the future for manned missions. 

Read the complete article HERE

Curiosity Rover Finds Martian H2O

NASA's Curiosity Martian rover has found water in the Martian soil.  Not freely available perhaps

but LOTS of it, on average, two pints per cubic foot of soil, that works out to be about two percent.  Water it seems will not be a big concern on future manned Martian missions.   

Among other tests that were present in the recent test was sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide and oxygen.  This level of detail in determining soil composition has also turned up some unsettling information.  

From the article:

• Laurie Leshin dean of science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute said: "analysis of the soil has also shown the presence of a type of chemical called a perchlorate, which is can be toxic to people. "It's only there at a 0.5% level in the soil but it impedes thyroid function," Leshin  said. "If humans are there and are coming into contact with fine-grained dust, we have to think about how we live with that hazard. 

More from the Guardian article HERE

Water On Young Moon Rivaled That of Earth

A study of Luna material brought back to Earth during the 1972 Apollo mission shows evidence that the moon, may contain as much subterranean water as the Earth.  

Estimates have it that Luna's mantle may contain 100 times more water than was previously thought. 

This could be more troublesome than anything however.  The present convention has the moon formed by collision with a Mars sized object and ejecting the moon as part of the collision.  If this is the case though, the the intense heat of the impact would have vaporized on the primordial moon.  

Read more here on Mail Online 

Ancient Martian Channels Formed by Lava Not Water?

From The Daily Galaxy is an article stating that the Martian structures resembling ancient riverbeds may have been made by huge fast moving rivers of lava instead of the more commonly accepted water theory.

David Leverington, an associate professor in the Department of Geosciences at Texas Tech, employing high-resolution photographs, has determined that the Martian channels only superficially resemble channels on Earth that formed by floods. However, unlike Earth’s water-formed channels, the Martian structures lack the delta-like, sediment-laden deltas that exsist at the mouths of Earth's major tributaries but instead terminate in vast plains composed of volcanic basalt.

This is supported by abundant evidence of past eruptions of lava at the heads of these large systems, very similar to what is seen on the moon and on Venus.

The image is the Kasei Valles, a circum-Chryse outflow channel, which flowed into the Chryse Planitia. Credit: NASA/Texas Tech.

Complete Daily Galaxy article here

The Moon May Have As Much Water as Earth?!

Scientists have announced that sub-surface Moon rock may contain as much water as we have on Earth. Levels in fact 100 times higher than previous estimates.

Now before you start envisioning well drilled to huge aquifers you should know that these new figures are based on samples brought back from the Moon by Apollo 17. The deep core-sample contained glass beads with trapped water in them.

High levels of water on the Moon is a bit of a mixed blessing. The down side is the theory of the Earth being created by a Mars sized impactor pealing the Moon off the proto-Earth. The problem is that the impact would have left virtually no water behind. Present theory has water brought from deep within the Moon by volcanic activity.

for the complete article and links to other articles check the IO9 blog here

Moon Contains Huge Amounts of Water

Last year's LCROSS mission was launched to determine whether water exists at the moon's poles did show that the moon does indeed contain water, but later research shows how far off NASA was in how much there was!

The plume kicked up by the rocket, slamming into the Cabeus crater, contained a startling forty one gallons of water, almost twice what was originally suggested.

From the Yahoo article:

• NASA Ames Research Center (scientists) calculates there could be 1 billion gallons of water in the crater that was hit — enough to fill 1,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Of course the scientist's enthusiasm is metered by the knowledge that there are no plans to return to the moon in the foreseeable future.

Yahoo article from sent in by Tim Sayell here

Earth's H2O Most Likely Came From Asteroids

Tim Sayell sends in an article from Yahoo News that pretty much confirms something that we suspected - that Earth's water came from water bearing asteroids.

From the article:

• Astronomers have for the first time detected ice and organic compounds on an asteroid

This goes a long way towards supporting that ice comets and asteroids crashing to Earth during early planetary formation some 4 billion years ago, seeded the planet with water and carbon-based molecules. Though it has long been theorized, this is the first time that scientists have published hard data supporting the theories.

It may be that asteroids were responsible for 20 to 30% of the total amount of terrestrial water.

Read the complete article HERE

No Cheese, but there IS H2O on Luna!

CNN reports that NASA's LCROSS has indeed turned up water on the moon! Preliminary data collected from the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite's October 9th impact, indicates a significant amount of water in the plume thrown up by the impactor.

Project scientist Anthony Colaprete, stated that the amount of water contained in the impact plume was about a dozen, two-gallon bucketfuls. This could be significantly good news for any future long term facilities to be self sufficient - when it comes to fuel and water, two of the most expensive commodities to transport from Earth to orbit and to the Moon.

CNN article

Water found on the Moon!

Though it is far drier than any Earth based desert, new observations from three different spacecraft have "unambiguous evidence" of water across the surface of the moon. This according to an article in Space.com sent in by Shaun Saunders.

The new findings, of lunar polar water, are detailed in the Sept. 25 issue of the journal Science are back by evidence of lunar polar water ice by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Further evidence should be available in just a few weeks when the planned lunar impact of NASA's LCROSS satellite. LCROSS will hit one of the permanently shadowed craters at the moon's south pole in hope of churning up evidence of water ice deposits in the debris field.

Researchers are not saying that there are vast quantities of ice - One ton of the top layer of the lunar surface would hold about 32 ounces of water, but finding water on the moon would be a boon to possible future lunar bases, acting as a potential source of drinking water and fuel..

Yahoo news article from Tim

Mars once had massive lakes

Tim Sayell sends in an article concerning new discoveries of substantial water on Mars. There has been ample discoveries of water with the polar missions, but to this point large bodies of water were merely extrapolations. Now with this new body of evidence it is clear that Mars did in fact have huge bodies of open water. This new evidence takes the form of: "definitive evidence of shorelines on Mars" according to an article in Yahoo News.

Researchers have found an ancient shoreline of a large deep-water lake that existed some three billion years ago. It covered as much as 80 square miles and was up to 1,500 feet deep -- roughly the equivalent of Lake Champlain bordering the United States and Canada.

Another truly astonishing discovery is just how fast this lake disappeared! Mars is a dry planet now....no big surprise. How fast it became that way, might be though. As bodies of water on Earth evaporate they leave successive shorelines. Mars' lake did indeed leave a shoreline but only one. It's very possible that the climate change on Mars was so dramatic and fast that the lake may have frozen solid and sublimated to water vapor over millions of years.

Yahoo story CBS News story

*I thought I would share an observation that Shaun Saunders had on the pic for this article. If we view the original graphic for this story you see a fairly typical horizon shot with the the sun light being filtered through the Martian atmosphere....which of course is rendered in red which as we have seen over the past years of photography from Mars is totally wrong. Shaun points out that the sky should as he puts it should be "pale blue, like Arizona, not red, unless there is a current dust storm in the area" Well I feel like a de de de for missing that....lol

The future of watersport?

Talk about the future of water-sport entertainment! This has got some sci-fi extreme written all over it. Any bets on how long before we see it in a science fiction flick? Wild


null - Watch more free videos

Cassini find high speed jets of water on Enceladus

This photo shows jets of water vapor shooting from Saturn's moon Enceladus, taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. These jets extend hundreds of kilometers from the moon's south pole. They were observed during a flyby on 24 October 2007, when the probe's Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) observed a star as it passed behind the plumes. By measuring how much starlight was absorbed during the passage, scientists discerned four distinct jets in the plume. The jets were still tightly focused at an altitude of 15 km above the surface, suggesting they were moving faster than 2100 km per hour. There is some speculation that these jets might indicate subsurface oceans of liquid water.

<- read more ->

Thanks to Shaun Saunders for the post

Something Weird going on with the Phoenix Lander

This is what I just read on the AstroEngine.com web page: Phoenix has found something more compelling than water - President Bush informed.

Damn! now that sounds very mysterious. However NASA scientists are quick to point out that t they have not discovered direct evidence for life on Mars. But something is going on and it's important enough that NASA and the University of Arizona are going to great lengths to keep the details out of the public domain!
The official line is: the Phoenix team need more time to analyze the complex data they’ve received and will wait till mid-August at the earliest to make a press release.

The release in Universe Today is a bit more forthcoming: new data appears to indicate the "potential for life"

But the 800 lb. gorilla here is that this is all good and fine, and very exciting, but since when does that instantly rate informing the leader of the free world?

<- UPDATE NASA say Mars environment could support extreme lifeforms ->

Water Ice on Mars Confirmed

Well, we sort of suspected this was about to happen when the Phoenix first noticed sublimation happening in the first trench that it dug. Well NASA is confirming now that Phoenix has indeed confirmed that water vapor was detected when the latest samples were warmed in one of the ovens used for testing samples.

NASA also noted that the Phoenix's mission has been officially extended for one month beyond its original mission.

Phoenix has also completed its color panorama view of its landing site which was one of the criteria for completion of its primary mission.

color panorama view

<- more ->

Thanks to Shaun Saunders for the heads up

Mars Air Once Had Moisture

A new analysis of Martian soil data suggests that there was once enough water in the planet's atmosphere for a light drizzle or dew to hit the ground, leaving tell-tale signs of its interaction with the planet's surface. The data for this conclusion, which is a dramatic departure from presently held theories that suggests Martian moisture came mostly from geological upwelling, comes from published measurements of soil from Mars that were taken by various NASA missions: Viking 1, Viking 2, Pathfinder, Spirit and Opportunity.

<more via sciencedaily.com>

Phoenix Lander may have found ice

In an article from New Scientist that Shaun sent in The Mars polar lander Phoenix, while extending a trench, uncovered a bright white substance that could very well be ice. The other possibility is a form of salt, which in either case supports the theory that water was once very abundant on Mars. The lander's robotic arm uncovered the white substance after further excavating sites called Dodo and Baby Bear to create one large trench. Periodic photos will be taken of the area to document if the exposed layer changes. Evaporation or frost, of the white area, will be a strong indicator that liquid water once pooled in the trough between polygons and then froze.

****Update as of 6/20/08*****
I have been hearing a lot of conflicting data, but Shaun Saunders sends me an article from MSNBC. It seems that the white substance that was the center of some confusion is indeed some form of ice. That conclusion was reached when scientists viewed updates of the trench cut by the Phoenix's scoop. New pictures from the site show a marked decrease in the amount of whitish material that can be viewed in the frame. According to the new article: Initial chemical analysis was inconclusive, but scientists said they could tell by seeing if the material disappeared after exposure to the thin Martian atmosphere. When scientists compared Sunday's pictures with imagery captured early Thursday, dice-sized crumbs of the white material were clearly missing.

<View the before and after shots to see the difference>

Phoenix Lander arrives and is healthy!

The Mars Phoenix Lander parachutes down to Mars on Sunday, in this image captured by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. As you can see in the B&W image from the MRO the lander is clearly visible below the parachute as it nears the surface. The next photo This is one of the first images captured by the Phoenix lander, showing the vast plains of the northern polar region of Mars. Peter Smith, of the University of Arizona at Tucson and principal investigator for the Phoenix mission noted that the ground looks like the "active surface of the Arctic regions of Earth." Cracks in the soil show that surface is "active" because no dust or sand has filled in the cracks. over the next few days, the lander's 7.7-foot robotic arm is scheduled to begin functioning. The robotic arm is set to collect the first soil samples in about a week. The lander is expected to function for about 90 days with energy generated by the solar panels.

'Active glacier found' on Mars

Shaun Saunders send in this article from BBC News online.

We have seen evidence that water in liquid form was once common on Mar's surface. Today, evidence shows that a significant amount of the Martian polar regions are composed of water ice. However up to this point this was considered ancient ice, many millions of years old. Recent overflights of the Deuteronilus Mensae region between Mars' rugged southern highlands and the flat northern lowlands by the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft have shown an icy feature may only be several thousand years old. This could be significant in not only finding active water underground on Mars but also these areas might be uniquely positive sites for discovering microbial life on the red planet. The reasoning being that as the water peculates to the surface it would carry along any microbes living in the or around the liquid.

For the complete article, click here or the article title

First sign of water found on an Alien World

Water has been detected in the atmosphere of an alien world for the first time, a new analysis of Hubble Space Telescope data suggests. The planet, called HD 209458b, is about 70% as massive as Jupiter and is scorched by the heat of its parent star, which it orbits 9 times as close as Mercury does to the Sun. Because of its orbit, astronomers have been able to glean a lot of information – such as its size and mass – about the distant world. n February, researchers using the infrared-sensitive Spitzer Space Telescope announced that there was no sign of water vapour in its atmosphere, now, Hubble observations seem to have revealed the missing water. Astronomers at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, US, did a computer analysis of previously obtained Hubble data taken when the planet partially eclipsed its parent star. Hubble observed light from the host star that had filtered through the outer reaches of the planet's atmosphere. The relatively small amount of light filtering through at about 0.9 microns suggests the presence of water, which absorbs light at this wavelength. But despite the presence of water, scientists point out that the planet's prevailing temperatures of about 1000° Celsius mean conditions would not be favourable to life.

submitted by Shaun A. Saunders