Posted on 03/01/2004 2:08:45 PM PST by vannrox
NASA will hold a press conference Tuesday to announce "significant findings" about water on Mars based on evidence from its Opportunity Mars rover.
"It's going to be the most significant science results that we've had from the rovers, and it's bearing on their primary mission," NASA spokesperson Don Savage told SPACE.com. That mission is to find signs of water that might support life.
Will the announcement change how we think about Mars?
"Anything of a significant nature has that possibility," Savage said. "Sure."
If there is liquid water presently at the surface of Mars, as several lines of rover evidence have hinted, then most scientists agree there is the possibility that life could exist. Water does not mean life, but it is the key ingredient that makes life possible.
Few scientists doubt that Mars was once warmer and wet. And tremendous amounts of water are locked up as ice in the polar regions. The main question is whether any of that water remains at the surface in liquid form.
Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, are exploring opposite sides of the planet near the equator.
A SPACE.com story Sunday revealed a "palpable buzz" among rover scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, from where the rover mission is run. Sources indicated that a coherent picture of the geology of the rover landing sites was emerging.
Speculation that the announcement might involve any discussion of biology has not been confirmed.
Until now, all rover science news has been revealed at press conferences held in Pasadena. A routine had been established and the next press conference was slated for later this week. Sources indicated a major press conference might come next week. But NASA rushed to set up Tuesday's press conference at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC.
"We didn't want to sit on this information for a long time," Savage said, adding that the scientists felt they "had gotten the information they needed."
The panel assembled for the press conference includes top brass and a cast of important science characters.
Speakers will include Ed Weiler, Associate Administrator for NASA's Office of Space Science, Jim Garvin, Lead Scientist for Mars and the Moon, Cornell University's Steve Squyres, the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Principal Investigator, and MIT geologist John Grotzinger, among others.
The press conference will take place at 2 p.m. ET and will be carried live on NASA television.
Opportunity has been investigating the soil and a rock outcropping in a shallow depression at its Meridiani Planum landing site, which may once have been the site of a giant lake or ocean. The rocks are layered and may have formed as sediments settled in the bottom of an ancient lake or ocean, or as part of a river bed, but that is only one hypothesis.
Both Opportunity and Spirit have found sticky, clumping soil that scientists already said could contain water. Only small amounts of water, perhaps sucked from the atmosphere, would be needed to mix with salt in the soil and create a brine, which could exist in liquid form even in the frigid environment of Mars.
Opportunity also appears to sit amid a field of hematite, a mineral that typically -- but not always -- forms in the presence of water. The rover has also found countless BB-sized beads. The spherical objects might have formed in a water environment, the scientists have said before, but there could also be other explanations, including volcanism and meteor impacts.
The rovers have sent back a mountain of other data on rocks and soil that, as of late last week, had not been fully analyzed or in some cases had not yet been released.
The rovers landed in January and are schedule to explore Mars for at least three months. They could last into summer, however. The mission price tag is $820 million.
...really could've used the vacated space.
I was about to post this article, when I found it had already been posted (I searched for it before posting).
Moving right along...
My WAG is that they're playing the "limited hang-out" gambit and will not 'fess up to the obvious evidence of life found by the rovers, but will make great hay over the (already known) water.
What will (IMO) be new will be the revelation that there is liquid water in the immediate sub-surface region. One implication would be that the earlier satellite data of massive amounts of sub-surface water -- in the form of permafrost -- will have to be revised. This would mean that it could be fairly trivial to sink a shallow well and draw up liquid water. Whether it's sweetwater or "brine" is yet to be determined.
My theory is that the bitter cold temperatures reported in the Martian air are meaningless WRT the ground temperature. Some time ago it was reported that there was a dramatic air temperature gradient, with the air at the surface level being very warm, IIRC in the 70 deg. F range.
The extremely thin Martian air would be a very poor conductor, so, it would not be very effective at bleeding off the ground heat either by conduction or convection.
Meanwhile, the ground would continue to soak up heat from the Sun, and retain it. If there is residual heat from the core, it could contribute to maintaining the heat. In essence, it would be sort of a "greenhouse effect", only based in the soil, rather than the atmosphere.
A "warm, wet Mars" from the ground level on down could easily be teeming with life. (And, those "blueberries" might actually be turds afterall!)
Scratch and Sniff will be seen as a tremendously inexpensive investment. The author has been very accurate in the past, so he probably has the inside dope.
Life??
Did I miss something?
I wish you wouldn't say that. It is very offensive to us Hindu followers.
If you said "tasty cow," that would be different.
I will have to agree, the announcement of life on Mars would be delayed as they do not know how to do it.
Like with most facts, you get it out and get it ALL out!
But, I shall await the dribs and dribbles as govt. is all too prone to do.
Did I miss something?
Yes, much speculation. And some really nifty pictures of fossils...
No the presence of water ice HAS been determined. They have even mapped which parts of the polar caps are ice and which are C02.
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