Ice on Mars

June 20 (Bloomberg) -- The existence of ice on Mars was confirmed today by NASA scientists, the first time frozen water has been sampled on another planet. Water in liquid form is an essential ingredient for life.

Whitish, dice-sized chunks, which were dug from the rocky red soil and warmed in the sun, vanished four days after the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Phoenix probe dug them up June 15. They confirm what NASA satellites have suggested for years: Frozen water exists several centimeters beneath Mars's surface.

Scientists believe ice exists on planets including Pluto, though Phoenix is the first probe to confirm it on the ground. The survey is part of NASA's theme in Mars exploration: follow the water.

``We've hit what we're looking for,'' said Mark Lemmon, an atmospheric scientist at Texas A&M University in College Station and co-investigator on the NASA project. ``The job now is to find out what's mixed in with the ice.'' He spoke at a press conference in Tucson, Arizona.

The Phoenix's robotic arm also hit a hard surface yesterday while digging in a different spot, raising scientists' hopes that they might uncover a larger ice layer to sample, NASA said.

``When I look over this flat plain of rock and dirt, it's amazing what we're looking at,'' said principal investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona in Tucson, which is co- managing the project. ``If you got a giant broom and swept if off, it's a big ice sheet.''

Ice Below Surface?

NASA satellites suggest about a quarter of Mars has ice beneath the surface, primarily at the polar regions.

The agency's plan is to gather up ice and dirt, then deliver it to the Phoenix's airtight ovens. The matchbox-size ovens will then bake the sample.

On Mars, the boiling point of water is just 4 degrees Celsius. Under the planet's faint atmosphere, the water will quickly vaporize, Smith said.

Before it does, the probe will analyze the samples for any long-chain carbon molecules such as amino acids, the building blocks of life.

``That's what you need to have for a habitable zone on Mars,'' Smith said.

This is a big deal for three reasons. One, the presence of water on Mars means that there could have been some kind of life on the planet at some point in the past. It is even possible that some remnant of that life could remain say as spores waiting for a more hospitable climate to return.

Two, the presence of water ice means that at some point in the future it might be possible to teraform Mars and make it suitable for humans to live there.

Three, and by far the most important in the short term is that frozen water on Mars means that it is far easier for a manned expedition to go there. Due to the distance involved any Mars expedition would have to spend one year on the red planet if there is water there then they don't have to waste rocket fuel sending a year's supply of water to Mars and they don't have to waste space on the landing craft bringing any down to the surface with them. It means that they can manufacture a breathable atmosphere and that they can produce rocket fuel for the return trip right there on the planet's surface.

The chance that we'll see humans walking on Mars in our lifetimes just went up significantly.

First pictures of the Martian far north

A Nasa spacecraft has sent back historic first pictures of an unexplored region of Mars.

The Mars Phoenix lander touched down in the far north of the Red Planet, after a 680 million-km (423 million-mile) journey from Earth.

The probe is equipped with a robotic arm to dig for water-ice thought to be buried beneath the surface.

It will begin examining the site for evidence of the building blocks of life in the next few days.

A signal confirming the lander had reached the surface was received at 2353 GMT on 25 May (1953 EDT; 0053 BST on 26 May).

Engineers and scientists at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California clapped and cheered when the landing signal came through.

"Phoenix has landed - welcome to the northern plain of Mars," a flight controller announced.

The Martian arctic looks pretty much like every other part of Mars that I've seen. But still it is what is below the surface that counts.

Stop and think for a minute about what a great achievement it is to launch something like this from Earth and have it land safely on another planet at the exact time and place that were planed.

I still doubt that the machine will find the firm evidence of life that it was sent to look for, however. That will take human boots on the Martin ground.

How about we take all the money we are wasting by subsidizing ethanol and other global warming fantasies and put it into space exploration. That way we will not only push back the frontiers of human knowledge we will get all kinds of technological spin-offs which just might do something like cure cancer or even give us that cheap and abundant source of pollution free energy the greens want.*

*Actually that's wrong. The greens don't want a cheap and clean source of abundant energy. They want the human population reduced from six billion to a few million who will live at the neolithic level.

NASA probe lands on Mars

PASADENA, Calif. — ­ NASA's Phoenix Mars spacecraft appears to have made a safe landing on Mars.

Just before 8 p.m. Eastern time, mission controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory here received a radio signal from the Phoenix on the ground in the icy plains north of Mars' Arctic circle.

Because the signal was relayed via the Mars Odyssey orbiter, the controllers would have to wait another couple of hours, until Odyssey's next pass over the landing site, for additional word of the Phoenix's condition, including whether it had successfully unfolded its solar panels and possibly the first photographs.

If all is operating properly, the next few days will be spent checking out the instruments aboard the lander. Then, it will begin the first upclose investigation of Mars' north polar regions. That area became a prime area of interest for planetary scientists after NASA's orbiting Odyssey spacecraft discovered in 2002 vast quantities of water ice lying a few inches beneath the surface in Mars' polar regions.

All of Mars' surface is currently far too cold for life to exist, but in the past, Mars' axis may have periodically tipped over so that its north pole pointed at the sun during summer. That conceivably could have warmed the ice into liquid water.

With liquid water comes the possibility of life.

On Phoenix, a robotic arm with a scoop at the end will dig into the permafrost terrain into the ice. Instruments on the spacecraft included a small oven that will heat the scooped-up dirt and ice to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. Analyzing the vapors will provide information of the minerals, and that will, in turn, provide clues about whether the ice ever melted and whether this region was habitable for life.

"We see Phoenix as a stepping stone to future investigations of Mars," said Peter H. Smith of the University of Arizona, the principal investigator of the mission.

I wish the little robot well on its mission and I congratulate the scientists and engineers who designed and built it and launched it on its way.

I somehow doubt that they will find any firm proof that there was ever life on Mars (not even Sam Tyler's leather jacket) but the effort is still worthwhile.