Water Close To Being Discovered On Mars

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Thanks that was informative.

Really, one should thank whoever created the Wiki entry.

One important thing to note about the habitable zone is that it moves outward from the star as the star ages on the Main Sequence. The Earth is edging ever closer to the inner edge of the zone, which will likely render it uninhabitable in about 500 million years time unless we intervene.

Some possible (although not necessarily practical) methods of intervention are to remove hydrogen mass from the Sun (which will also make it live longer), enlarge the radius of the Earth's orbit by transferring momentum from asteroids, or install sunshades in orbit around the Earth. The last of these we could do with current technology.

If the Earth's magnetic field were to diminish significantly or even switch off, we'd have to do something to prevent our atmosphere being removed by direct interaction with the solar wind.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Man, I really can't get over the thread title. "Close to being discovered" is pretty lulzy.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

A more accurate title would be "Liquid water close to being discovered on Mars" - we've already detected other phases of water.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Big deal Europa has flowing water under its ice haha. Sucks to be Mars

 

[XCV330]

Big deal Europa has flowing water under its ice haha. Sucks to be Mars

But the monolith thing told us not to land there.

I think there's debate on how thick the ice crust is on europa. That ocean down below might be extremely difficult to get to and study. If all you need is water, that doesn't matter, you can just mine the ice from any of those icy moons, or even more easily, perhaps from asteroids.

But liquid water, if it's there, on Mars makes the idea of settling it with a viable population much better as drilling down a mile, desalinating and purifying the water is doable with current tech. This assumes that humans can actually live long term, and more importantly, breed long term, in partial-gravity. There's lots of data on living in micro-gravity. There is almost none on living in partial-g.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

But the monolith thing told us not to land there.

I think there's debate on how thick the ice crust is on europa. That ocean down below might be extremely difficult to get to and study. If all you need is water, that doesn't matter, you can just mine the ice from any of those icy moons, or even more easily, perhaps from asteroids.

But liquid water, if it's there, on Mars makes the idea of settling it with a viable population much better as drilling down a mile, desalinating and purifying the water is doable with current tech. This assumes that humans can actually live long term, and more importantly, breed long term, in partial-gravity. There's lots of data on living in micro-gravity. There is almost none on living in partial-g.

Have they done a scientific study on copulation in micro gravity?

 

[XCV330]

Have they done a scientific study on copulation in micro gravity?

with mice. i dont have the paper but they did not reproduce well and there were many defects

 

[CorporalCaptain]

A more accurate title would be "Liquid water close to being discovered on Mars" - we've already detected other phases of water.

"Close to being discovered" makes no sense. It's like saying close to being pregnant, to adapt the idiom "you can't be half pregnant."

How about "Radar evidence of liquid water on Mars"?

That was my idea. The scientists analyzing MARSIS data came up with "Radar evidence of subglacial liquid water on Mars".

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2018/07/24/science.aar7268.full