Evidence of Mud on Mars
NASA has photographic evidence that mud might have flowed very recently on Mars. And when I say very recently, I’m not talking about a geological timescale. It might have happened just a few years ago. If this is true, it is almost certainly also true that there is mud on Mars today.
NASA scientists compared pictures of the Centauri Montes region of Mars taken by NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor in September, 2005 to a picture taken of the same region in August, 1999. The 2005 picture showed a distinct difference from the 1999 picture that could be explained by a mud flow.
The existence of mud would add a new complication to a possible manned mission to Mars. If the mud’s existence proves to be true, scientists will have to develop a doormat that astronauts can use to wipe their feet before reentering their space capsule after taking a walk on the Martian surface. Their mothers would insist on it.
Categorised as: Science
I took NASA 4 years to get around to looking at their 2005 pictures? They need a good scrapbooker to get those pics organized for them.
Actually, the number of photographs taken by NASA (or, in fact, any of the data downloads from earth orbiting satellites and the like) is astronomical. Literally. And, after you’ve put all the data into a usable form (cleaned pictures, turned data dumps into pretty graphs and the like), then the scientific communities examine it in detail and compare it to older images, etc.
Then, because this is science, scientists have to get other scientists to look at the same data to see if they see the same thing. Then work on a paper and find a publisher, then get the paper peer reviewed, etc.
Imagine shuffling through, say 9000 images and comparing it to similar images taken a few years before, all but virtually identical. I get a headache just thinking about it, and that’s without stickers.
What are these stickers you speak of and why would they spare you the headache?
Although I must agree that you raise some good points about the volume of images. That damn Bush administration probably outsourced this to Halliburton and it’s a miracle there are any results at all anyway.
Now I ask this – why would earth-orbiting satellites be taking pictures of Mars? Wouldn’t the earth-orbiting satellites be taking national security-oriented pictures that would be directed to DOD, NSA and HSD?
Note, I was speaking of pictures/data downloads in general and not specifically pictures of Mars, though I suspect the same is true for the Mars orbiting spacecraft.
If you go down any scrap-booking aisle in any store, stickers and stamps are everywhere. I assumed (perhaps wrongly) that stickers had to do with scrap-booking and noted that just getting pictures was a hassle here at NASA even without the stickers.
I’m oblique.
How embarrassing that I failed to write “It took NASA….”
I’m in such a dilemma, Joel. I know you don’t want serious answers to your posts, but you’ve picked a very serious (in the human spaceflight world) topic here, not mud, though, so much as dust.
Sounds minor – big deal, but we discovered what a big deal dust was on the moon. You can check it out here, for instance. It not only got into mechanical devices, and could affect electronic devices, it soaked into the suit cloth external surfaces and, when the suits were doffed in the tiny living area, airborn and abrasive dust was everywhere (with no way to remove it). Dust got into suit bearings (causing small leaks), caused considerable wear on the suits, even over just a couple of wearings, and, dug into the hands particularly of the crew who had dust forced so far into the abrasions on their hands that it took weeks for it all to grow out of their skin.
I WISH mud was the problem. That, at least, could be controlled.
Sorry for the fit of seriousness. I think I should go and lie down.
Stephanie Barr: I’m sure it makes a huge difference to you rocket scientists, and I don’t mean to belittle that in the least, but from my layman’s perspective, mud or dust doesn’t matter. Their mothers would still insist on a doormat.
(Although, to my feeble mind, mud would imply water and I’m guessing that water is probably a good thing.)
I long ago gave up on doormats, what with the Wonder Dog tracking in who knows what…
But I’m sure Martian mothers would insist on using the doormats…. after all, if it’s a red planet, all that red mud might look like blood and that would be just gross to have it all over the carpets.
CatLadyLarew: I was thinking about the astronauts’ mothers. If there are mothers already up on Mars, those astronauts are going to catch hell for showing up unannounced.
The doormat idea is not so far fetched. Certainly something must be done to clean their boots other than a good spit shine. Spit and zero gravity don’t go too well together.
RedRaider: Huh. I hadn’t thought about a spit shine. Actually it would work because Mars isn’t a zero gravity environment. Mars’ gravity is only about one-third that of Earth’s, but it does have gravity, so spit would fall to your feet.
There’s another thing I never thought of. I was always hopeless at track and field (and all sports) in school. With one-third Earth’s gravity, I want to try the high jump on Mars. I should be able to get in a better long jump as well with less gravity pulling me down. Of course, the space suit would probably be a drag, but better than dying without it.
I can’t help think of Arnold Schwarzenegger and him playing the lead in “Total Recall” when I hear of Mars. I am sure he could have no problem with a bit of mud on his feet while he walks around. He would probably drive his ever so environmentally friendly Hum Vee which would mean a door mat would be unnecessary.
James: Sorry, I never saw Total Recall, so I don’t get the reference. And I’m not a fan of Arnold Schwarzenegger, although I’m told he’s not a bad governor.
I don’t know how his Humvee would perform in Mars’ atmosphere.
I’m in Northern California, so the Guvernator is always on our minds. Arnold may thrive in the mountainous landscape of Mars that is so similar to his native, Austrian Mountains. I am not sure about the dust and mud percentage of your average Austrian town, and how this would affect him on Mars. He may have to look into getting his Humvee converted to ethanol fuel to survive the atmosphere.
James: This sounds like a plan to me and, thanks to term limits, he’s going to be looking for a new adventure soon enough. Mars might be just the thing for him.
Very good point. There’s nothing more shameful than a muddy astronaut.
DK @ Knucklehead!: Yes, I know. They go all the way to another planet and then leave their space capsule a mess. What would aliens think of us Earthlings?
If NASA can’t develop such a doormat, their name’s gonna be Mars, er, ah, mud!
Seriously (sorry, Joel) if we couldn’t protect ourselves against mud, you’d be right. Here’s hoping there’s enough water around to make some.
However, it’s the dust (especially in the lower gravity gradients) that cause the real headaches.
How did I know them would be fighting words for Stephanie? By the way, in case you don’t know, Stefphanie is a NASA rocket scientist.
So how about we send all the politicians and voters on Earth to Mars so their mud-slinging wouldn’t be so unpleasant down here? I’m sure Mom would appreciate having less crap to clean up.
I am all in favor of sending the Politicians to Mars. However, if we send the voters to Mars as well, we may not be left with an adequate gene pool here on Earth to sustain civilization. At least the ones left behind can enjoy the copious amounts of mud!
Are you serious James? Send the politicians and the voters. The ones left to pee, sorry play in the gene pool would be the thinkers and skeptics who know that their votes do not count, and may even not be counted. The staff responsible for shipping them out would be provided with slippers for the space ship and leave their boots on mars. Glad to have been of help.
Doctor Faustroll: Sending the politicians to Mars sounds like a good plan, but, if we do, we’d better hope that we haven’t overlooked any intelligent life living on Mars. They’ll be exceptionally pissed off about the present we send them.
James: I think we should leave the voters here. To me, the whole point is not having to put up with the politicians. We can always vote via interplanetary communications.
Mud? Mars? Astronauts? I think someone should be putting a call in to someone’s mother and let her know what these boys are doing while she’s not looking.
ann: Well, you know what they say. Boys (and girls, there are female astronauts) will be boys (and girls).
Wow, that is really neat. They are always finding new stuff in space – astronauts have a great job!
You were one of my top 10 entrecard droppers for the month of October – thanks
I posted a thank you link at my blog tonight.
Heidi: In this case, it wasn’t astronauts who found the mud. In fact they’re not absolutely certain it is mud. They came up with that hypothesis by comparing pictures taken a few years apart of the same spot on Mars. The pictures were taken by an unmanned spacecraft (should that be “an unpersonned spacecraft” in these politically correct days?), so no astronauts were involved. Nonetheless, studying space, even while your feet are firmly planted on Earth still seems like a fascinating job.
And yes, from what we on the outside can see, astronauts do seem to have a great job. I’d love to get the chance to go up into space. Being realistic, there’s no way I’m ever going to get that chance. I’m almost certainly too old to make it to the time when space tourism will be common and affordable for the likes of me.
Thanks for the link.
My dad loves ‘space’, deep space, outer space, space at the back of his numerous cluttered closets. Still he’s getting on now so if he enjoys all things Nasa I (sort of) enjoy sitting through numerous videos of Mars and the Moon. The other day we saw what seemed to be a shot of buildings on the dark side of the Moon. I know Led Zeppelin are rich but that’s taking the rock star lifestyle a little too far. More seriously though, I don’t doubt there’s water out there, it’s the air, plants, and gravity that seems to be the problem. With little more to offer than a few rockets hardly better than the efforts of WW2 I think we’re stuffed when it comes to space exploration. Maybe I watched too many old Star Trek episodes as a kid but back in the 1970s everyone was cocksure about rolling around the galaxy by the new millennia. Maybe the money would be better spent saving the planet we have before we traipse about outer space looking for more.
Paul Baines: Just in guidance systems alone, I think we’re considerably past WW2 rockets. If Stephanie, the rocket scientist, reads your comment I’m sure she’ll want to weigh in on it.
As to spending money on saving the planet rather than space, I’m all for saving the planet if it indeed is in need of saving, but there is something exciting about space; something that is, quite literally, much bigger (by a great many orders of magnitude) than ourselves. And I think that is worth trying to understand. And who knows, learning more about the universe might help us to save our own planet. We are, after all, a part of the universe and the rest of the universe operates under the same laws of physics and chemistry as we do. Maybe it has some lessons to teach us about our own planet. We’ll never know unless we try to learn those lessons.
Oops I meant Pink Floyd, my apologies to all hippies for my mistake :p
now i know in mars have a mud, thanks for info, but are the same like in earth mud
JR: I haven’t the foggiest of ideas. And, in this one instance, I’m not overly embarrassed about my ignorance because, as I understand it, the scientists aren’t even positive that what they saw in the pictures was, in fact, mud. As I understand it, they looked at two pictures that were taken at different times and said that the flow of mud was a plausible explanation for the differences.
All I know is what I read in the media, so I’m not an expert in this at all. If someone is an expert and wants to contradict me then I will very quickly retract what I’m about to say. That warning having been stated, as to is it like Earth mud, that depends on what you mean by “like.” If you simply mean is it wet soil of some sort. Then, yes, if it does indeed exist, it is, by definition, like our mud, otherwise it wouldn’t be called mud. Wet soil is the definition of the word mud.
If, on the other hand, you mean does the soil that is mixed with the water have the same composition as the soil on Earth? Then, probably not. As I understand it the soil on Mars has a higher iron content than most of the soil on Earth, which is why Mars is called “the red planet.” Oxidized iron (rust) gives it that red color. And there are probably other differences in the soil composition as well; I don’t know. I probably don’t know any more about Mars than you do. Sorry.
P.S.: If you’re interested in learning what NASA does know about space and the planets I highly recommend that you spend some time wandering around the NASA Web site (http://www.nasa.gov). It’s a great, information-rich site.
Are you trying to stir up some mud with this post? Ha ha. If Martian mothers got mad do you think the boys could run away faster or slower. Would they be caught?
ettarose: Me? Stir up mud? Never, neither literally or figuratively!
Of course it is only conjecture that there is mud on Mars. And if there is, no one is certain how much there is or how widespread it is.
Of course, with a gravity of only one-third of Earth’s, mud or not, the boys should be able to take some mighty long leaps to escape their mothers’ wrath. On the other hand, the mothers would experience the same gravity, so it would be a wash–and a wash is exactly what you’d need after playing in the mud.
Mud on Mars… the Martian forces must be getting messy as they prepare their invasion force (cue the Jeff Wayne “War of the World” music…)
Rob: Hopefully the mud will bog them down.