Mars: A Water World? Evidence Mounts, But Scientists Remain Tight-Lipped

Space.com ^ | 2/29/04 | Leonard David

[Brett66]

Mars: A Water World? Evidence Mounts, But Scientists Remain Tight-Lipped
By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer
posted: 01:00 pm ET

29 February 2004

There is no doubt that the Opportunity Mars rover is relaying a mother lode of geological data. Using an array of tools carried by the golf cart-sized robot -- from spectrometers, a rock grinder, cameras and powerful microscopic imager -- scientists are carefully piecing together a compelling historical portrait of a wet and wild world.

Where Opportunity now roves, some scientists here suggest, could have been underneath a huge ocean or lake. But what has truly been uncovered by the robot at Meridiani Planum is under judicious and tight-lipped review.

Those findings and their implications are headed for a major press conference, rumored to occur early next week -- but given unanimity among rover scientists and agreement on how and who should unveil the dramatic findings. Turns out, even on Mars, a political and ego outcrop hangs over science.

Scientific bulls-eye

It is clear that Opportunity's Earth-to-Mars hole in one -- bouncing into a small crater complete with rock outcrop -- has also proven to be a scientific bulls-eye. The robot is wheeling about the crater that is some 70 feet (22 meters) across and 10 feet (3 meters) deep.

It is also apparent that there is a backlog of scientific measurements that Mars rover scientists working Opportunity have pocketed and kept close to their lab coats.

For one, the rover found the site laden with hematite -- a mineral that typically, but not always -- forms in the presence of water. Then there are the puzzling spherules found in the soil and embedded in rock. They too might be water-related, but also could be produced by the actions of a meteor impact or a spewing volcano.

A few spheres have been sliced in half and their insides imaged. Patches of these spherules, or "berries" as some call them, have undergone spectrometer exam to discern their mineral and chemistry makeup. Close-up photos of soil and rock have also shown thread-like features and even an oddly shaped object that looks like Rotini pasta.

Brew of dissolved salts

There is speculation that the soil underneath the wheels of both Spirit and Opportunity rovers contains small amounts of water mixed with salt in a brine. That brew of dissolved salts keeps the mixture well below the freezing point of pure water, permitting it to exist in liquid form.

Opportunity has revisited select spots in the outcrop, drawn there, in part, to look for cross-beds -- sedimentary deposits that are formed in beach, river and sand-dune environments. Using its Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT), the rover has carried out several cleaning and grinding sessions on exposed rock outcrop.

Cross-beds are patterns of curving lines or traces found within the strata of sandstone and other sedimentary rocks. Cross-bedding indicates the general direction and force of the wind or water that originally laid down the sediments.

Right around the corner

Opportunity's research is a "work in progress", said Ray Arvidson, deputy principal investigator for the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) project from Washington University in St. Louis. Data is being gathered to present "a coherent story", he said during a press briefing last Thursday.

"That story is right around the corner," Arvidson told SPACE.com . "But we need to finish this work in progress, finish the set of experiments, get the data down from the spacecraft, processed and analyzed. Then I think that the story will be known," he said.

Arvidson said multiple working hypotheses are still at play. Water is involved, but only on some of the hypotheses. Until coordinated experiments on the outcrop are completed, what the right hypothesis is remains unknown, he added.

Severing the umbilical cord

Mars exploration using the rovers has allowed on-the-spot "discovery driven science", said MER Deputy Project Scientist Albert Haldeman. He likened the Mars robot work now underway to deep ocean research using remotely operated submersibles.

"It turns out that the best way to explore rocks [on Mars] is go look at craters. Mobility buys us the ability to do that. It was the right fit for looking at rocks," Haldeman told SPACE.com . "The discovery from the Microscopic Imager and seeing those spherules…and finding a larger population of spherules and seeing them in the rocks and the outcrop…that progression of discovery influences our thinking."

Haldeman said the next step will be severing the umbilical cord between Opportunity and the crater it's exploring. The robot would wheel itself out of that site and onto the expansive terrain of Meridiani Planum.

"That umbilical cord…that's hard to break. It's more than even just a tension within the science team," Haldeman said.

Tantalizing hints

Scientists are carefully analyzing the rock data gleaned by the Opportunity rover. "We really want to understand that we've got those figured out right," Haldeman said. Up to now they have offered some "tantalizing hints", he said, that speak to a possible relationship with water.

Piecing together the story of what Opportunity has found involves great care and deliberation, Haldeman said, based on a wide-range of viewpoints and levels of expertise. "We want to be cautious," he explained.

More to the point, the science output from Mars must withstand scrutiny by experts outside the rover investigation teams.

"There are lots of geologists out there who are looking at these pictures and they are starting to drool," Haldeman said. "The American taxpayer that spent $800 million on this deserves a thorough analysis," Haldeman said.

Slippery slope leading to life

One scientist eagerly awaiting the news from Mars, particularly from Opportunity, is Gilbert Levin. He is Chairman of the Board and Executive Officer for Science of Spherix Incorporated in Beltsville, Maryland.

Levin is a former Viking Mars lander investigator. He has long argued that his 1976 Viking Labeled Release (LR) life detection experiment found living microorganisms in the soil of Mars.

In 1997, Levin reported that simple laws of physics require water to occur as a liquid on the surface of Mars. Subsequent experiments and research have bolstered this view, he said, and reaffirms his Viking LR data regarding microbial life on Mars.

Levin detailed his Mars views in a SPACE.com phone interview and via email.

"It's hard to image why such bullet-proof evidence was denied for such a long time, and why those so vigorously denying it never did so by meeting the science, but merely by brushing it away," Levin said.

"Of course, now that it must be acknowledged by all that there is liquid water on the surface of Mars," Levin added, "this starts those denying the validity of the Mars LR data down the slippery slope leading to life."

Mars mud

Levin points to Opportunity imagery that offers conclusive proof of standing liquid water and running water on a cold Mars. 

Other images show the rover tracks clearly are being made in "mud", with water being pressed out of that material, Levin said. "That water promptly freezes and you can see reflecting ice. That's clearly ice. It could be nothing else," he said, "and the source is the water that came out of the mud."

As for the spherical objects found at the Opportunity site, Levin has a thought.

"I wonder on Mars if it can rain upwards," he said. The idea is that subsurface water comes up through the soils and then freezes when it gets to the surface.

"Maybe these little spherules form just like raindrops form up above," Levin explained.

Levin said that brine on Mars is a code word for liquid water. He senses that great care is being taken by rover scientists because the liquid water issue starts the road to life.

"That's the monument that they are afraid to erect without real due process," Levin concluded.

[Phil V.]

This IS breaking news.

[Djarum]

We're more interested in Hollywood than life on other planets, thank you very much.

[537 Votes]

As long ago as the 1970s, people were looking at the first topographic maps of Mars and noticing that the terrain in the northern hemisphere was smoother than the terrain in the southern hemisphere, and that the dividing line between terrains looked remarkably like a dried, ancient coastline.

That would imply, of course, that half of the Martian surface was once covered by an ocean. Mars was a water world without any question.

IMO, NASA is simply trying to make PR points by proving and reproving something which was proven to most intelligent people's satisfaction long ago.

[Brett66]

That pic in post 20, it's baffling. I suppose they could explain it away, but it sure looks like something beyond mere geologic origin.

[In_25_words_or_less]

scientists are carefully piecing together a compelling historical portrait of a wet and wild world

"Eureka! Two jet skis and a 9 & 1/2-horse Johnson outboard!"

[Phil V.]

That pic in post 20, it's baffling.

. . . and there are others . . .

[demlosers]

I'm waiting for the Hoexland report, he knows what it is. ;)

[SedVictaCatoni]

IMO, NASA is simply trying to make PR points by proving and reproving something which was proven to most intelligent people's satisfaction long ago.

To be fair, it is possible that we simply don't understand enough about areology to determine whether we're looking at a coastline or a merely a different kind of wind erosion pattern than we have here on Earth. Many intelligent people once looked at the water channels on Mars, looked at canals on Earth, and drew a conclusion to their satisfaction.

[DB]

Too heavy for a rover isn't it?

[SunkenCiv]

contains small amounts of water mixed with salt in a brine. That brew of dissolved salts keeps the mixture well below the freezing point of pure water, permitting it to exist in liquid form.

Uh, no. There may be water ice in the soil, but it's clear from the "from nowhere to nowhere" erosion features that there are very brief, very localized events consisting of a temporary denser atmosphere made up of (for example) water vapor, making liquid water possible, and features to form in the permafrozen soil.

[Dialup Llama]

from the article...

Levin said that brine on Mars is a code word for liquid water. He senses that great care is being taken by rover scientists because the liquid water issue starts the road to life.

"That's the monument that they are afraid to erect without real due process," Levin concluded.

Much like this monument...

[unibrowshift9b20]

I don't see how anyone can argue that robots are always better than people in space after they read what exactly they do with these rovers. For goodness sake! If it were me on mars instead of that rover, I could pick up that little rock and show you the side of it so you could decide whether it was a frozen bug or not. I could turn back around and look at my footprint and stick my finger in it and tell you whether or not it was icy. I could dig you a little hole in the ground, instead of turning the rover back and forth for hours on end to make a little rut. These little rovers are certainly good, but they don't replace people.

[SedVictaCatoni]

These little rovers are certainly good, but they don't replace people.

Except that these rovers cost a tiny fraction of the amount that a manned mission would cost. For the projected cost of even the cheapest manned mission to Mars, we could send separate digger-bots, thermometer-bots, frozen-bug-finding bots, and a whole slew of others.

[Don Joe]

I'm waiting for the Hoexland report, he knows what it is. ;)

I grit my teeth and looked. No surprises there. He's still hallucinating machinery in the rocks. Apparently it is possible to fail a Rorschach test.

[Indie]

Ah from the pics I've seen, and everything else we've learned in the past from the topography, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the MANY MANY artifacts in these pics are indeed fossils and that Mars was once like Earth. There are way too many artifacts of organic appearance in almost every photo to be some kind of igneous anomoly that just "happens" to look like a fossil. NUTS to that. And I wish the scientists would stop being elitist and tell us what we already know.

The overwhelming evidence discovered thus far makes it imperative we send astronauts to Mars to attempt to learn what happened to "kill" the planet and perhaps help us keep it from happening here on Earth, as well as to confirm the presence of hardy life that still remains, and the types of life that did exist, which could very well be similar to early life on Earth due to the planet's proximity. I've already seen what appears to be trilobite and erypterid fossils as plain as day in some of the pics.

[NotQuiteCricket]

Here is a link inside of the article that you posted:
http://www.space.com/news/spacehistory/viking_life_010728-1.html

The link above is for an article about the Viking I/II mission.

Here is a quote from the article:
""To my surprise, in their LR experiment, they seemed to have clear periodic oscillations in the release of gas from a Martian soil sample injected with a nutrient solution. The oscillations in gas release had a period of what appeared to be one Martian day. Being a circadian biologist, I became very excited," Miller told SPACE.com.

On Earth, Miller said, circadian rhythms -- oscillations with a period of nearly 24 hours -- are present in every species examined down to blue-green algae. Was it possible, he asked, that the LR experiment was recording the circadian rhythm of a Martian soil-dwelling microbe?

NASA worked with Miller, providing him the 1976 LR data sets, as well as converting the information to an electronic format. That allowed the circadian biologist to study the data using modern computer-based analytical tools.

"I found that the gas release was indeed rhythmic, with a period of precisely 24.66 hours, a Martian day," Miller said. This finding, along with other painstaking assessments about LR operations, the scientist feels that a Martian circadian rhythm in the experiment may constitute a biosignature - a sign of life."

[Phil V.]

How constant was the temperature? If it was allowed to deviate with day-night temperatures then, of course, the "chemical reactions" would be a function of temperature . . .

[NotQuiteCricket]

Here is what the article has to say about the experiment:


The scientific squabble centers on one Viking biology investigation: the Labeled Release (LR) life detection experiment. It used a small measure of scooped up soil, stirred together with a nutrient "soup" containing carbon-14.

The idea was that any living organisms present would digest the radioactively labeled nutrient solution, then belch off gases as life metabolized the nutrient. And guess what? The LR experiments on both Landers coughed up puffs of radiolabeled gas - evidence for microorganisms in the soil of Mars.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Phil V.]

"I found that the gas release was indeed rhythmic, with a period of precisely 24.66 hours, a Martian day . . ."

I'm curious about what the temperature variation of the "soup" was. Unless it was constant and protected from the day-night Martian temperature swings then the period could reflect a 24.66 hour Martian temperature cycle as opposed to a bio-rhythm . . .