
Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars - yawz
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-44952710
======
liberte82
Why don't we send a rover to some of these interesting places? It seems like
we're constantly making fascinating finds on Mars, then send rovers to the
middle of a random rocky desert.

~~~
ryanmercer
For any exploratory drilling, or covering any real amount of ground, you need
humans. For reference, Opportunity Rover has only traveled 45 km/28 mi in 14
years.

A human can collect more specimens in a day than ALL of the rovers have to
date.

If we remove this year's launch window, you have 10 minimum-energy launch
windows in the next 21 years.

2020, 2022, 2024, 2026, 2029, 2031, 2033, 2035, 2037, 2039.

If we could get the top 5 GDP nations to contribute 1% of their GDP to a
proper global space program we'd have 400+ billion dollars a year (NASA has
has a budget of around 18 billion lately). We could probably start sending
unmanned missions in 2020 with test hardware for in situ resource production,
develop a decent vehicle for travelling, then land 3-4 manned missions by 2022
with overlapping areas of operation as Zubrin (and others) have proposed that
way if something goes wrong with one you can travel in 1-2 days, without
exiting your vehicle, to another one of the missions.

You could have extra ships there waiting just to return specimens (and to
offer a backup return vehicle for each team to get back up to orbit to return
on an ISS-sized ship for the travel to and from Mars, not unlike in The
Martian, which you could then park in Orbit around Earth or even the Moon and
use as a slightly-used international space station or use it again for another
trip out). You could return literal tons of specimens to earth for study, you
could have human beings processing the stuff there "no this looks like a waste
of time, this one is interesting, that's interesting, that's a weird feature
let's drill a few samples here" not to mention just cover more area with
various instruments getting all sorts of readings.

 _sigh_

If only. If we could just get 5 countries to agree to contribute 1% for 2-3
years we could establish a permanent moon base and do a hardcore Mars human-
exploration mission. Obviously it would take 10-20 years to pull off but an
international committee could be selected (representatives from all 5 nations
as well as other nations that say want to help with supporting the missions,
wouldn't need to pony up nearly as much money). Call it Starfleet 0.5 and make
all of the science that results from the missions 100% public, give every
country the UN recognizes a certain allotment of specimens as well for display
in government-sponsored museums and to allow their own citizens to study.

Alas, I dream too much.

~~~
remote_phone
I was talking to an oncologist yesterday. Her biggest frustration is that
Silicon Valley billionaires are spending billions upon billions to send things
to space, when there are serious problems on Earth that could be fought, most
importantly cancer.

It’s hard to argue with her. $400B/yr would fund a lot of research that would
benefit humanity a lot better than a coordinated mission to Mars, even though
it would be very exciting to see in my lifetime.

~~~
pc86
An oncologist wishing more money was spent on cancer? In other news, water is
wet.

First of all, the optimal place for me to spend my money is not necessarily
the optimal place for someone else to spend theirs. We can't know for sure, of
course, but who were would have preferred Elon Musk start a cancer research
firm instead of SpaceX? Secondly, there is no universal "cancer" that we can
fight. There are hundreds of different types, just as distinct as different
diseases. You could turn pancreatic cancer into a chronic condition tomorrow
and no make any progress at all toward curing oropharyngeal cancer.

There's a great exchange in the West Wing episode "Galileo" about just this
type of narrow minded viewpoint.

Sam Seaborn: There are a lot of hungry people in the world, Mal, and none of
them are hungry because we went to the moon. None of them are colder and
certainly none of them are dumber because we went to the moon.

Mallory O'Brian: And we went to the moon. Do we really have to go to Mars?

SS: Yes.

MO: Why?

SS: Because it's next. Because we came out of the cave, and we looked over the
hill and we saw fire; and we crossed the ocean and we pioneered the west, and
we took to the sky. The history of man is hung on a timeline of exploration
and this is what's next.

No to mention the fact that all the cancer drugs in the world will not save us
from an asteroid. If we don't get people living and populating on other
planets, the human species is doomed.

~~~
evanlivingston
I think the dialogue quoted here demonstrates the underlying issue that is
lost in futurist thought.

No one "pioneered the west". Various groups of people with powerful technology
traveled west and stole land from other groups of people. They also traveled
south and east and used that technical and economic power to enslave other
humans and forced them to develop the west. Development and progress for
progress' sake alone leaves a lot to be desired, namely, ethics.

Also, It's clear that much like economics, technology doesn't _inherently_
trickle down. It certainly has the _potential_ to have positive downstream
effects, but without having a priority of pushing those positive impacts
downstream I would argue that we're left with a larger gulf between the
marvels of modern science and technology and those and the bottom. That is to
say, without prioritizing equalizing the gains of science and exploration and
those gains actively stratify society further.

There are many, many people in the world who don't know that we went to the
moon, there are people who don't have access to electricity and plumbing. I'm
not arguing here for not exploring other planets, but I am trying to make a
case for focusing out scientific efforts of improving the lives of _everyone_
on the planet. Without spreading the achievements of science and technology to
everyone on the planet, humanity is doomed.

~~~
thaumaturgy
Some modern thinking has confused self-loathing and careful introspection.
There were a great many things that could have, or arguably should have, been
done differently in the past, but many of those things were done in the
context and to the standards of the day. The transgressions of the past
resulted in a technologically advanced society. Introspection considers this
and asks, "what should we do differently in the future?" Self loathing says,
"we shouldn't exist and should spend our future doing nothing."

> _There are many, many people in the world who don 't know that we went to
> the moon, there are people who don't have access to electricity and
> plumbing. I'm not arguing here for not exploring other planets, but I am
> trying to make a case for focusing out scientific efforts of improving the
> lives of everyone on the planet._

Your second statement contradicts your first. Either you want to ensure that
everyone has access to electricity and plumbing before science spends any
effort on exploration, or you don't.

The natural conclusion of this argument is that no money should be spent on
exploration, and all money should be redistributed evenly to everyone so that
everyone maintains an identical standard of living. I don't want to assume
that's what you meant, but if it isn't, I can't figure out what your ideal
world looks like.

~~~
ada1981
Certainly we ought to solve global hunger and access to water before spending
trillions of dollars to go find water on mars.

~~~
djtriptych
Hunger and access to water are political problems not scientific ones.

~~~
bushidone
I think the simple answer is 'hedging'.

Cancer, hunger and the like are unlikely to kill the entire human race in one
go. A climate event or asteroid could, which would render all other efforts
redundant. Mars exploration means hedging the survival of our species.

A diverse portfolio is where the smart money is.

~~~
ada1981
This is a nobel reason, however I imagine the real answer is closer to sex
appeal and money.

Also, who should determine how the resources of humanity are deployed?

People who arbitrarily have gained control of the resources?

For a tiny fraction of what is spent on space, we could solve world hunger and
water.

It also seems a well fed and hydrated global population would be much happier,
healthier, creative and productive.

Another question for folks who make the hedging argument — at what point do we
say “ok, we have X% of the population living off world, so now we are going to
divert funds to make sure people have access to basic human needs on earth.”

~~~
lambdadmitry
> For a tiny fraction of what is spent on space, we could solve world hunger
> and water.

No we realistically can't. How exactly do you propose doing that? Keep in mind
that there is _a ton_ of precedents where local governments withheld foreign
aid (which was supposed to "solve hunger" at least at that part of the world)
to enrich themselves and/or to control their citizens. How do you solve _that_
with any amount of money? Bomb the "bad governments" into submission? Just
keep the money in some account waiting for those governments to become more
civilized? Might as well colonize Mars in the meantime

~~~
ada1981
I think Scott Harrison has done well with Charity Water -- I believe he has
singlehandedly solved 1-2% of the global water problem in the last decade.

Surely, if a NYC nightclub promoter can stop doing blow and start drilling
wells, we can scale what he is doing.

~~~
lambdadmitry
No, not really. Two reasons:

\- water access is a source for income in quite a few places (e.g. [1]).
Drilling a few wells in remote villages might fly under the radar, but
"solving clean water" means cutting people very much capable of violence from
their income. That can't be solved by NYC nightclub promoter, unless they are
willing to wage urban warfare.

\- it's not enough to drill the wells as they will dry out eventually if there
are no regulations and water distribution infrastructure. It's just not
sustainable. And to solve the water problem sustainably requires a lot of
infrastructure, water treatment, pipes, pumps, maybe some desalination plants.
Even US itself is too gridlocked to solve its own problem of water supply,
allocation, and aging infrastructure (e.g. Flint or CA's almond orchards),
despite having all the money in the world. Why do you assume it's somehow
enough to throw a few trillions at a few dozen countries with wildly different
political and cultural climates?

[1]:
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-06-25/thirsty-v...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-06-25/thirsty-
venezuelans-forced-to-pay-for-water-as-army-takes-over)

------
gbugniot
A note slightly related: Mars reaches perihelic opposition with the sun on
July 27, 2018, which means observers on Earth will have their closest view of
the planet since 2003. Great time to borrow a telescope.

~~~
colemannugent
Being able to see the red of Mars at night is strange.

Since I (and probably most of us on HN) live in the worst area for light
pollution it's not too often you can see other planets like this unaided.

~~~
anonytrary
Jupiter and Venus are incredibly bright, you'll be able to see them with the
naked eye at night even if you're in a city.

~~~
colemannugent
I should clarify: I have seen the planets before, but I can't remember being
able to see this much detail without a telescope or binoculars.

Jupiter and Venus look like regular, although very bright, stars. Mars is
currently a very visible red circle that is unmistakably a planet.

------
brlewis
For those, like me, wondering how this is even possible:

 _In order to remain liquid in such cold conditions (the research team
estimate between -10 and -30 Celsius where it meets the ice above), the water
likely has a great many salts dissolved in it._

~~~
hossbeast
It seems like, being under ground, it would also be subject a higher than
normal pressure, which would also help

~~~
Tushon
(not a scientist, but was skeptical of this statement given the general
"incompressibility of water")

From looking at the phase change chart[0], you don't really get into the
"interesting" stuff as far as pressure goes until pretty deep (something like
9-10km, from looking at some sample number of pressure at various depths [1]).
Given that they indicated in the article that this is under 1.5km of ice, I
don't think that's deep enough to have pressure significantly change it, but
would be happy to learn that I'm not correct in my reading of this :)

0 -
[https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/60170/freezing-p...](https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/60170/freezing-
point-of-water-with-respect-to-pressure) 1 -
[https://www.earthlearningidea.com/PDF/189_Pressure_rock.pdf](https://www.earthlearningidea.com/PDF/189_Pressure_rock.pdf)
\- table on page 2

~~~
forapurpose
A few considerations that may influence this question:

Pressure != compression, and water is otherwise sensitive to pressure. The
boiling point of water varies by ambient air pressure, and in fact, the
ambient air pressure on the surface of Mars is too low for liquid water,
AFAIK; it boils away.

Also, see gmueckl's helpful comment:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17610197](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17610197)

------
henryaj
Per the Great Filter[0], this is really bad news, right?

[0] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter)

~~~
tbabb
Everything about the Drake Equation, the Great Filter, and the Fermi "paradox"
strike me as extremely sloppy logic, from which nothing but unfounded
conclusions can be drawn.

We have essentially zero data on the prevalence of life in the universe. There
is no "absence of life" to explain, because we don't actually know whether
life is absent. We more or less completely lack the scientific capability to
detect extrasolar life entirely, and have only limited data about life within
the solar system-- we have not checked deep in Mars' crust, which will be a
comfortable 72F at some depth (and has a good probability of being wet there,
too); nor have we checked the oceans of Europa or Enceladus; nor have we
checked the methane seas of Titan. We have no datapoints. There is nothing to
extrapolate. There is nothing to say. _We don 't know anything_. Anything but
the null hypothesis here is bad science.

I also don't think the absence of life on Mars (if it is indeed absent of
life, and there are no microbes in deep aquifers) would present trouble,
because the surface of Mars is uninhabitable even by Earth standards-- it is
far worse than even the most hostile parts of Earth, which are nearly devoid
of life despite there being about 4.5 billion years for complex life to evolve
into those niches, with the leg-up of a more hospitable start. If there were
forests at the top of Everest, I might have an easier time wondering why the
bone-dry, -200F, 0.006 atm surface of Mars appears sterile, but given where
life has a hard time reaching here on Earth, really no one should be surprised
at all.

~~~
xelxebar
To my mind, the Fermi Paradox isn't so much about explaining an absence of
life. It's the simple observation that, if life were abundant in the universe,
the naïve expectation is that we'd see it everywhere, but we don't, so what
gives?

Intuitively, I see it like a bunch of homemade pickles. Say we have 100 jars
of homemade pickles but are not sure whether they actually picked nicely or
spoiled. If we try a jar and it's bad, we'd probably expect that a lot of the
jars have gone bad.

That said, the anthropic principle complicates this intuition. Our sun isn't a
random star that happens to harbor life; since we're sapiently asking this
question, it's guaranteed to harbor life.

It's almost as if someome tested our pickle jars for us and then just told us
that at least one of them was spoiled. In this case, "what is the likely
number of bad pickle jars?"

Anyway, the discussion gets even more nuanced and interesting once we start
thinking about the likely futures of human civilization, and factoring that
into the mix, but I'll stop here.

~~~
tbabb
> if life were abundant in the universe, the naïve expectation is that we'd
> see it everywhere, but we don't

No, that's my point: We don't see it because we _can 't_; we don't have the
technology. The fact that we see no aliens has nothing to do with the number
of aliens, and everything to do with the fact that are more or less incapable
of looking.

It would be like saying, "if butterflies were abundant in my garden, I'd see
them everywhere, but I don't, so what gives?" when you are blind, and also
stuck inside your house. There is nothing to explain. We can talk about seeing
(or not seeing) butterflies when you are able to see at all.

~~~
herbstein
You do realize that what you're proposing isn't in direct contradiction to the
Fermi paradox, but is one of the most popular solutions to it?

The Fermi paradox is the observation that, based on the size of the universe,
we'd naïvely expect to observe several alien lifeforms. That's it. It doesn't
imply a "Great Filter", or any other solution. It's just the observation.

The "Great Filter" theory is a commonly mentioned one, because it's pretty
easy to imagine humanity, our only reference to intelligent life, killing
human civilization. Your hypothesis about not having the technology is also
very, very popular, and as such I don't understand why you have such a big
apprehension to the Fermi Paradox in general.

~~~
tbabb
No, I am not proposing that the universe is full of life, nor am I proposing
that it is empty of life. I am objecting to the notion of "drawing conclusions
about how much life there is based on how much life see," because we are
blind.

A universe empty of life is just as compatible with our observations as one
that is full of it. We should not "expect" anything at this point.

------
mFixman
20 years ago it would have been unthinkable to find water in any other planet
in the solar system.

Mark my words: in 20 years, we'll find extremely simple proto-bacterial life
in Mars and in many other planets.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
We have already established that microbes live on the exterior of the ISS.
They may have come from Earth originally but it does show that life can exist
in conditions that we humans consider to be absolutely inhospitable.

~~~
collyw
Isn't life thought to have started in "conditions that we humans consider to
be absolutely inhospitable".

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
Yes, but to quote the annoyingly semi-reasonable creationist Ken Ham: “We
weren’t there. We didn’t observe it.” (Note: I am not a creationist, I do
agree with the logic of that argument, but I also see no scientific basis for
any religious origin story of life to have more scientific basis than others).

We have recreated the conditions that predate life and found that organic
molecules were formed, but we’ve never observed the leap from organic
molecules to organic life. So the best we can do barring the invention of a
time machine is look for life elsewhere from Earth to try to fill in the
blanks.

~~~
bvc35
You see a man lying still on the ground, blood pooling around his body, and a
woman standing close by gripping a knife with bloody hands. What happened? “We
weren’t there. We didn’t observe it.”

~~~
civility
She tried to save his life by removing the knife, then she went in to shock?
Probably not the explanation you had in mind. This is not a good metaphor.

~~~
bvc35
You see? You are still able to make theories based on what you know and
causality, and we can debate about which theories are most likely to be true.
Not directly observing something is the beginning of theorizing. We don't just
give up on knowing.

------
tzfld
>an area of high reflectivity which is thought to be water

This not seems to be entirely = to 'water revealed on Mars'

~~~
dekhn
Scientists have excellent language to describe these sorts of things
(ambiguity and confidence in guess). For example, from the actual paper's
abstract:

"""Quantitative analysis of the radar signals shows that this bright feature
has high relative dielectric permittivity (>15), matching that of water-
bearing materials. We interpret this feature as a stable body of liquid water
on Mars."""

It's absolutely true that we can't call this a strong positive siting, it's
more of a "good evidence which is not completely unambiguous".

~~~
mjburgess
> """

Python? Scala?

~~~
dekhn
I use triple quotes when quoting, because many things I copy-paste have
subquotes (either "..." or '...') or contractions (don't).

~~~
5thbootloader
If someone quotes your triple quote, would they have to use quadruple quotes?

~~~
dekhn
We just don't do that.

------
apo
Here's the original paper (no paywall, and apparently not linked in the BBC
article):

[http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2018/07/24/scien...](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2018/07/24/science.aar7268)

A couple of highlights:

My first thought was why couldn't this be some other liquid like CO2:

 _We examined other possible explanations for the bright area below the SPLD
(supplementary text). For example, a CO2 ice layer at the top or the bottom of
the SPLD, or a very low temperature of the H2O ice throughout the SPLD, could
enhance basal echo power compared with surface reflections. We reject these
explanations (supplementary text), either because of the very specific and
unlikely physical conditions required, or because they do not cause
sufficiently strong basal reflections (figs. S5 and S6). Although the pressure
and the temperature at the base of the SPLD would be compatible with the
presence of liquid CO2, its relative dielectric permittivity is much lower
(about 1.6) (28) than that of liquid water (about 80), so it does not produce
bright reflections._

Why liquid and not solid water?

 _... Perchlorates can form through different physical and /or chemical
mechanisms (30, 31) and have been detected in different areas of Mars. It is
therefore reasonable to assume that they are also present at the base of the
SPLD. Because the temperature at the base of the polar deposits is estimated
to be around 205 K (32), and because perchlorates strongly suppress the
freezing point of water (to a minimum of 204 and 198 K for magnesium and
calcium perchlorates, respectively) (29), we therefore find it plausible that
a layer of perchlorate brine could be present at the base of the polar
deposits. ..._

This is a similar principle (freezing point depression) to that used in de-
icing roads.

And maybe the best part of all - there may be other smaller but currently
undetectable pools:

 _... The limited raw-data coverage of the SPLD (a few percent of the area of
Planum Australe) and the large size required for a meltwater patch to be
detectable by MARSIS (several kilometers in diameter and several tens of
centimeters in thickness) limit the possibility of identifying small bodies of
liquid water or the existence of any hydraulic connection between them.
Because of this, there is no reason to conclude that the presence of
subsurface water on Mars is limited to a single location. ..._

~~~
black_puppydog
thanks for the link. I find it staggering that science reporters in these big
outlets barely ever link to the original source and often don't even name the
exact publication. This kind of writing could easily get students into
trouble, why is it acceptable in post-graduate journalism? Links never hurt or
confused anyone, and they make the page so much richer.

~~~
greeneggs
While your diatribe might sometimes be valid, in this case the link is there.
It is the last sentence of the article: "The findings were reported in
_Science_."

------
sidcool
The little kid inside me is jumping up and down, like I have seen Santa. My
belief in Mars hosting simple life forms is stronger than ever now. May be
NASA already has data for it, but hasn't finished yet sifting through it.
Amazing news!

------
eagsalazar2
Why is "lake" in quotes? Seems like it is a real lake right?

~~~
andygates
It could also be a body of non-free water - very wet slurry would fit.

------
wytian
If I really wanted mankind to invest more money into exploring Mars, I wonder
what the best approach would be. What do y'all think? 1\. Make enough money to
invest your own capital/start your own company. (Ex: Elon Musk) AKA Do it
yourself. 2\. Go into politics and get enough support to start a campaign? AKA
Get the government to do it. 3\. Other?

------
scardine
Just finished "Red Mars", the book aged quite well for the scifi genre.

SPOILER ALERT:

The book ends with a dissident faction of Mars settlers living in a hidden
water ice dome under the polar cap.

~~~
mos_basik
Haaaaah, same here. Inhaled _Red Mars_ and _Green Mars_ last week. Putting off
starting _Blue Mars_ for a few days yet so I can actually get some work done.

------
jlebrech
would this be enough to create an viable atmosphere or should a dome be put
over it?

~~~
nacnud
Given that any previous water in the atmosphere has mostly escaped over time,
the dome seems like a better bet.

~~~
ryanmercer
Mars lost its atmosphere on a geological time scale. You just need to raise
the average temperature 5C to create a runaway greenhouse effect (and that gas
release from the polar regions would far outpace the solar winds stripping
atmosphere away and once it leveled off would take millions of years to get
back to the state it is in now).

The very thin atmosphere it has now, will take another 2 billion years or so
to be stripped away entirely.

~~~
jlebrech
maybe we should let Elon Musk nuke mars
[https://edition.cnn.com/2015/09/11/us/elon-musk-mars-
nuclear...](https://edition.cnn.com/2015/09/11/us/elon-musk-mars-nuclear-bomb-
colbert-feat/index.html)

------
donnywds
sounds scary! lol

------
Digitalunbox
wow that's cool!!

------
ChuckMcM
Nice. An "easier" source of water is a huge bonus for the first people landing
no Mars.

~~~
jpmoyn
Haha that was your first thought?

~~~
ChuckMcM
I know right? There is so much literature and speculation on what it will take
to live on Mars that "source of liquid water in quantity" is a greatly
simplifying step that knocks a dozen different failure scenarios off the
decision tree. I'm guessing that people aren't seeing how big a deal this is
for future colonists.

~~~
andygates
Yeah, but first you've got to drill a mile through the ice cap. Then you've
got to fight off the scientific community who are having none of this
Conquistador nonsense with your nasty infectious human microbiome wiping out
the scientific find of the century.

Melting ice is easier _and_ less evil.

------
perseusprime11
Soon they will find fish and potentially mermaids and mermans in that water.

------
pwaai
I've been saying this for _years_. This is such an amazing news.

I know there's lot of skeptics but just gonna put this out there in 2018. Our
solar system has intelligent beings greater than our civilization. There has
to be if water can be easily found so close to Earth. I don't know what they
do but the theory is they are mining for resources. Pretty sure they would
wipe out Earth if they wanted to but they choose not to? What do they want!!!?

