Phoenix on Mars

Hort,

I do not have a clue how to calculate a scale on this image. I could estimate but may be way off. Surely someone knows how to do this and will step up. I promise not to call them Surely.

Well your animation did it again Hort. If you look at the image in reply 418 you will see the sky brighten just before development. These are indeed thermal devils. The only thing I can figure is mid levels and low levels just above the surface are cooling rapidly post max heating. This would mean Mars is just like Earth. It heats from the bottom and cools from the top.

It will take NASA 4 months to figure that out. They are just now realizing that there is ice on the Lander leg. Geeze

Fred

Hort,

I think the imaging you do is fantastic, I just don't have to time to always do a lot of posting here, so sometimes miss some good postings from others.

The point again though, as I said before to Fred, is that these were the first official articles / images I'd seen posted relating to how the clumps have grown. Those were new, hence an update and all that I was trying to point out; I thought that people here might actually appreciate knowing about them since I hadn't seen them referenced yet...?

Paul,
Some of us do appreciate it. The deposits are extremely intersting and one of those phenomona that take a long time of periodic imaging to narrow down the possibilities. At reply 414 I proposed one possible explanation. I am sure there are other logical possibilities (but please not images of condensation on the outer sides of a liquid nitrogen tank which does not address the single leg deposition).

A somewhat more informative article about the results of the electroconductivity probe.

[link] ?ref=science

Apparently, the very first reading was positive. Maybe the instrument simply failed after that?

sol 105 3D super-saturated color 3D detail of trench Stone Soup:

Er, lumpy, climpy, bumpy, icy soil?

( I just had to say it.)

Of course I meant lumpy, clumpy, bumpy, icy soil

Hi Barsoomer

Thanks for the link in your #424. The plot thickens. It looks like the TECP was/is capable of identifying moisture therefore it may be that the conditions changed significantly from the taking of the first sample to the others. Were the times of the day when the samples were taken comparable? Was the TECP probe placed at the same relative points in the soil to when it made the forst positive sample? Could there be some significant effect on the soil caused by the landing jets? etc.

Perhaps, as was suggested, the later samples were all taken when there was much more than expected water vapour in the atmosphere and it all condensed into ice directly and so the TECP could not recognize it. I prefer that presumption to the "too little moisture" one as we can all see that there is lots of moisture there above and below the surface.

Winston

Press release on the twisters here, with some really nice images - including an amination of the telltale flying and the solar panels flapping! There is also one of some rather dramatic cloud movement that I didn't post because I thought it looked "wrong".

There are estimates of size and distance in the press release.

Er, I got the twister times wrong by 10 hours. I really didn't understand HOW a twister could form at 2AM but that was how I misread the times - so that's what it HAD to be!

Say, does that mean NO ONE is checking my work? Remember - you don't have to take anybody's word as gospil -- you can verify it all yourself.

Winston,
If you remember, when the probe was first used the surface disrupted and gaped (a duricrust effect). This could well have opened a gap enabling the atmosphere to interact with the probe. In which case the probe would have measured the atmospheric trace vapour rather than any free molecules in the regolith. Subsequent measurements where the fidelity of the surface was maintained found no free H2O molecules beneath the surface. IMHO a much more logical cause and effect than a dramatic change in the sub surface environment post landing.

I note that the latest article does not mention relative humidity bot of necessity when the temperature drops low enough the atmosphere must give up the trace water vapour. But I have never followed the tenuous logic chain that says it must disappear into the soil? Sublimate as ice (frost) on the surface yes - we have seen that. Ice crystals as cloud yes - polar cloud formation at night is well recorded from satellite data. But as free H2O molecules in the regolith, the probe says no. Perhaps Dr Zent is a proponent of the regolith annual water storage cycle hypothesis. If so then he is understandably frustrated that this theory has apparently been disproven.

Moisture has become a 'rubbery' term Winston and apparently can be applied at whim to all three states of Hydrogen Oxide. Ice which at these temperatures is just another rock. Water which is the liquid state of Hydrogen Oxide has never been seen on Mars. (Lets not argue about possible brines, or interpretations of new gullies or dry/wet flow traces. Liquid water has never been identified on Mars). The third phase is free H2O molecules or water vapour which exist as a trace component of the atmosphere.
But from the probe results, this does not penetrate the surface.

Or, maybe as the article states, there is way more water entering the soil, that the ice is so thick that the probe will not work, as Mario has pointed out, and has been proven to be correct.

so the Liquid state is not seen, AT THE TIME OF the PROBE.

stick it in the ice. or in the gap between.

It could also go into Rocks, like in the desert. Then they bleed moisture all day.

Mann,
The article actually has a quid each way. The water layer may be too thick or it may be too thin, yet the probe capability was built on known physics and chemistry and there is no indication that the laws of physics are different on Mars. So the more likely explanation is that the H2O molecules do not penetrate the surface.

Facts:
We know that the probe went into regolith not permafrost/ice. That layer is hard, resisting intense scraping and rasping

We know that the permafrost remains intact with only a few centimeters of regolith protection implying extraordinary thermal inertia properties.

We know that the probe can detect minute traces of free H2O molecules and that it can find none in the regolith.

We know that the regolith was disrupted and the probe open to the atmosphere during the only measurement where water molecules were detected.

I am sure that they will have spread the probe times to encompass the daily spread. And Mario's experiment although an innovative approach that he should take a bow for is as an analogy, like putting a 10 gram weight on a shipping container weighbridge and claiming that since it did not register it must be weightless.

The absolute dryness of the regolith is an unexpected finding and an incredibly important outcome. (dryness in this context being a relative term as their expectations of molecule thick films would have been classified as waterless in any other context). But this lack of any H2O molecules obviously makes some people uncomfortable and confirmation bias rears its head yet again.

Brian,

I agree. I have seen no signs of liquid water in this area.

Fred

Reply 428

checking Hortons work.........

Gospel is the correct spelling

Climpy sounds quite good actually

If the regolith is as impervious to moisture as the probe result seems to indicate, then this suggests that the ice table could be closer to the surface on Mars than otherwise thought, allowing warmer subsurface ice in the equatorial regions. Always look on the bright side of life!

Barsoomer,

Please define warmer subsurface ice.

Fred

Barsoomer

Even if the regolith is impervious to the passage of water it doesn't mean that there may be something, chemical or otherwise that traps water from the atmosphere and also restricts the movement of water from the ice layer below. Could those flocculose soil particles that are in every OM be the key? What are their chemical constituents?

Winston

Hi Winston,
Since the flocculose soil appears to be magnetic I would punt on Maghemite, or at least a significant maghemite component. Can I justify that other than on extremely general terms - no. Am I right - probably not. Just one of those hunches that feels good.

The thing is that your suggestion would require that there would be, in the regolith, 'something, chemical or otherwise that traps water from the atmosphere' and then freely releases it as a function of the daily temperature cycle, with no free molecules. That is a pretty weird and complex scenario. Dr Zent has not come out and clarified his statement related to H20 vapour concentrations in terms of absolute humidity. So I wonder exactly how much water vapour delta we are talking about when frost and clouds are considered.

Barsoomer, The subsurface ice is evident North and South of 60 degrees latitudes. They were expecting to find ice within the limited depth capability of the phoenix scoop. Not a feature of tropocal/equatorial regions.

Yeah Brian!
Maybe Maghemite!

sol 108 R8R2 sky:

Processed to emphasize sky details.

sol 110 RAC 3D ( colorized ) of soil in the scoop:

with links back to a focus zoom animation.

Don't stare at this too long. You might see:

a longish, thin white linear feature connecting a semi-circular reddish feature surrounded by a ring of small, dark spots.

If you really, really stare at the zoom animation you may see numerous other interconnected circular structures in the soil.

Some of this stuff is in the 1 mm range, so it may have made it through the screens.