Science Saturday: Water on Mars?? Warning: chemistry.

Breakthrough of the Week
Curiosity Rover Makes Big Water Discovery in Mars Dirt, a 'Wow Moment'

What Exactly is Going On?
The fact that there is water on Mars is really old news amongst the inner circles of scientists. There are numerous signs that have led us to hold this belief: there are ice caps on the north and south pole of mars, numerous river delta formations have been photographed on the surface of mars, and there are compounds on the surface of mars that can only be formed in the presence of water. Of course these are only observations from afar, and one of the missions of the Mars Curiosity Rover is to get a concrete analysis of the martian soil, including detection of water and methane (I'll save methane for another SS edition). If you've ever taken chemistry in college, you know how mass spectrometry works. If not, just know that the rover zaps a sample of soil with a badass laser and then determines what the soil is composed of by what is evaporated from it.

What did they Find?

Water!!!! Well, like I said, this comes at no surprise. Specifically, they found the Martian soil to consist of 2% water. Okay, so? Well for reference deserts on Earth average around 5% water. Species in the cacti family thrive at 10% water, but can survive as low as 1%. So hypothetically a cactus from Earth could survive in martian soil. However... this certainly does not mean that it can survive in the Martian atmosphere. Mars is strikingly similar to Earth: it's days last 24.5 hours, experience volcanic activity, and even are tipped on their axis at pretty congruent angles. But Mars is freezing, it's atmospheric pressure is about 1/3 of Earth's, and the atmosphere is very thin so there's little protection from solar radiation. In fact, if you recall from high school chemistry class the atmospheric pressure and temperature lineup so that water reaches its triple point on the surface of mars, meaning that it is boiling, freezing, and condensing all at the same time... woah. 

What are the Implications of this Discovery?

A Martian colony is the future of the human race, and may determine whether our species survives at all. In 1969 when we first landed on the moon an internal study was conducted at NASA to determine how long it would take us to get to the Mars. The study found that if we were diligent with our efforts we would have a Martian colony by 1980, if we were lazy we would be there by 1990.... well here we are. Of course that study was conducted during the cold war, when NASA's budget represented 4% of the total US budget. That number now stands at 4/10 of 1%, or .004 of the total budget. But I digress. One of the biggest hurdles we face concerning space travel is transporting raw goods into space - it costs $10,000 to take 1 lb. of goods into space so a gallon of water in space costs $80,000 (and that's just talking about low-Earth orbit). There have been all sorts of solutions proposed to help solve this problem, such as the space elevator, but the real solution is to simply have the goods waiting for us at our destination - which is why this amount of water on Mars is good news for Earth and a future Mars colony. 

Other News on Mars

-Methane, a strong indicator of life, has not yet been detected on Mars, making it highly unlikely that there are currently any living microbes on Mars.... but HOPE REMAINS

 

-New studies suggest that life on Earth actually originated on Mars.

-Sick of Earth? You can volunteer to be a part of a one-way mission to Mars!

Love,

Nate