Phoenix on Mars

reply 99: I shall not touch this

oh ill do it anyway

http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/GRAPHIC0/ROCKMIN/PhaseDiagrams/H2OPhase.gif

temperature range as reported by phoenix -80 to -30 C (which is off the chart)

but I do agree with you that it can support liquid water in the summers, (not now obviously) at low altitude

That -30C maximum temperature is the air temperature. The ground temperature might 20C higher than this or -10C, well within the range of liquid water brines.
There was also a report that estimated the temperature at the Phoenix landing site might get as high as -2C on the ground.

Bob Clark

so how exactly does the soil temperature jump 20 degrees above the recorded atmospheric temperature, as measured with phoenix? Please elaborate, I am very curious about this phenomenon.

Maybe I misunderstood you, and what you actually meant was that the temperature might be -10C higher at some specific distance below the surface of mars? I agree you know, the ground temperature could also be 26 C if you go down far enough.

First super 3D of soil in the scoop:

Yay! Super 3D Phoenix soil.

Well worth the download and examination with StereoPhoto Maker with liberal use of the ctrl-A ( positioning ) control.

Hort

I agree totally with your #96.

Remember the first NASA exclamation re. the magic carpet was "It looks like mud but it can't be mud". That type of thinking has pervaded NASA/JPL/ASU thinking since then despite the numerous examples of "strangely cohesive" soil that has been seen in almost every soil sampled by the rovers and now Phoenix. Also the numerous examples of muddy like tracks by the rovers and areas which looked like water recently flowed.

It seems clear that even thinking of appreciable water in Mars surface is a no-no for any of the Martian Missions and that any scientist suggesting that this possibility should be considered would be laughed out of the team.

It was possibly predictable that the mistake which led to the soil clumping farce would have been made whether the "martian surface soil strange cohesion" is due to small amounts of water wicking to the surface, electrostatic forces or whatever, as the scientists are programmed to ignore the cohesiveness phenomenon and move full steam ahead with their preconceptions of a ubiquitous totally dry and dusty martian surface despite all the visual evidence to the contrary.

However, I am nevertheless somewhat confident that Phoenix will do much to change this mindset. Some day they will find out that there is mud at the surface under certain conditions, and that the sky is not a thick pink above phoenix.

Here's my first RGB colour composite of a phoenix image, Sol 2, landscape showing the soil surface with blue grey pebbles or whatever and a horizon capped by a blue grey sky with minimal pink undertones.

I think phoenix has the potential to change some current official preconceptions drastically

Winston

LWS, I know a fellow with a doctorate degree. He will beat his head against a chunk of carbon steel, before he changes his mindset, even if it is WRONG. Privately, other colleauges chuckle, on the record, they fall in line. Too bad everyone fell in line and now we cannot get samples into the oven. There is NO mud on mars, the soil ALL flows like dust............

Quote of "mystery ingredient" That cements fine grains, to the coarser grains.

My guess would be hydrated salts, frozen brines.
\

"This is good news," said Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis, lead scientist for the Robotic Arm. He said that the clumping tendency of Martian soil at the Phoenix site and some earlier landing sites comes from extremely fine particles filling in gaps between coarser, sand-size particles, perhaps together with an ingredient acting to cement particles together. Future soil samples may be prepared prior to delivery by chopping and scraping them with blades on the scoop.

from

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/phoenix/release.php?ArticleID=1739

Mann,

Further to my 107 above. Minus the mystery ingredient that cements the fine and large soil particles together what mechanism would account for the often noted strange cohesiveness? I vote for brines and there may be some influence due to changing water of hydration states (with unknown environmental changes) as well.

But back to yestersol releases.

Here's another landscape shot with sky etc.

But what is that very strange architecturally shaped rock in the above picture?

The image above is a crop of the one above it magnified by 1.5 x and sharpened.

Winston

We can not be sure, that the structure of Phoenix Mars soil is a result of "clamping".

It may be that material was never thin - unlike what we obseve on Earth with its flowing/rain water.

The material might just has not had a chance to ever be turned into dust/sand.

So, the "clamps" might be in fact pieces of original vulcanic rocks.

eS

Last image for the night.

Here's a phoenix sol 14 RGB composite with interpolated green and adobe photoshop auto color.

Could the weird colours be fairly true but be due to significant alterations caused by phoenix thrusters on landing?

If so, can the arm sample areas outside the affected zone?

note the provocative soil deformation that might have been caused by a dislodged rock as well as the numerous small pebbles and filaments, etc.

Winston

Horton,

Quote:

"Why wasn't the "magic carpet" soil observation seen on the very first sol of Spirit taken into consideration for Phoenix?

If I remember correctly, the science speculation was that the effect was electrostatic or maybe mineralogical ( or maybe just "magic: ) -- but what was ever done to follow up on these speculations?"

Water is just the conduit that spirit uses. Call it "the force," or the Holy Ghost, it's a real phenomena that exists apart from the material world. Spirit first, then the matter we call "life." Not the reverse.

Mars is governed by "things" that are completely different than on the earth. You can't study what you don't believe in. Mars will never be understood in a purely scientific sense, I predict. She'll keep throwing curve balls that aren't touchable for reasons that don't make sense materially. Perhaps some that are truly dangerous. We've invaded another critter cage. Are there rules for this? I suspect that there are, BIG ones. Perhaps if you leave your cage, you get thrown down to the bottom of yours, FAST.

This isn't a mountain you climb. This is another world you invade.

It's just a theory about why things might suddenly go down hill in cage #???.

NASA repeatedly indicated that a white object (see Fig. 1) found under Mars Lander Phoenix was a spring coil (see Fig. 2) that had fallen off from Phoenix. However, the former is a bright white object, like a piece of bronchi remains, whereas the latter is dull black. NASA was wrong in the identification.

Fig. 1: Raw, unaltered NASA image showing a bright white object in a corner under Phoenix: [link]

Fig. 2: Raw, unaltered NASA image showing spring coil of Phoenix on the right side of the photo: [link]

as much as I want to believe that there is liquid water in the soil, there are a lot more reasonable and plausible explanations.

reply #114: please look at

okay,, that link didnt work. try this:

[link]

reply:2

OK Max, in regards to the atmosphere being considered totally dry, actually it is completely saturated with water, just at those temperatures and pressure that isn't much water at all. But in terms of relative "dryness", its not. Its closer to 100% humidity. It also means the rate at which water enters and leaves the atmosphere from ground sources is in equilibrium.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1979JGR....84.8335D

Also, as far as the ground being warmer than the atmosphere. Thats simple. The ground is warmed by sunlight, and as it warms the GROUND warms the ATMOSPHERE. Of course, being a near vaccum, the atmosphere doesn't absorb heat energy from the ground very well, so in fact most of the solar insolation will remain trapped in the soil as ground warmth. At noon, the ground should be significantly warmer than the atmosphere. We just don't know exactly how much, which is why we sent a lander there to MEASURE the temperature. So lets do it! Measure!

mars' atmosphere is completely saturated with water vapor. However, water vapor is a gas not a liquid. So mars' atmosphere is completely saturated with water in its gas state. I am getting confused by your use of the term "water". You are referring to H20 in its gaseus state, right? Because saying that water vapor is liquid would be silly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_vapor

its very important to differentiate between the two. in addition, if you read the full paper by davies, he goes on to mention that "the amount of water vapor in Mars' atmosphere
is small by terrestrial standard", although this doesn't really matter, because it isnt liquid water and cannot impact the dirt on the surface of the planet.

Another interesting point which he made was that there is more water vapor over the poles, and he confirmed my earlier guess, that the clouds over mars are water ice.

If anyone wants a copy of the paper give me a shout, its fairly interesting.

Reply 117 - absolutely the dust devils are proof of hot surface cooler atmosphere and we have seen a lot of those!

There is a lot of Water Ice on Mars and it is in certain places melting perhaps way beneath the surface but it is there.

[link]

A water cycle does exist the poles come and go something is rising up each season to create new caps granted CO2 is falling and freezing also. Hopefully Pheonix will shed more light on this soon.

Animation of sol 15-16 changes to soil in scoop is here.

OK, what can we see?

• soil in the back of the scoop has slumped,


• soil in the front has slid towards the back


• soil in the center fell from the roof of a small overhang

I see a number of very subtle long range features that have persisted between the sols.

Here is a sol 16 color image:

You don't wanna' know how these sausages were made.