Radar reveals ice deep below Martian surface

[Emperor_Norton_II]

http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn8397

Mars Express is bringing home the science:

The first ever underground investigation of another planet has been performed by a radar antenna aboard Europe's Mars Express spacecraft. The instrument probed two kilometres below the Martian surface and found tantalising hints of liquid water pooling in a buried impact crater.

The MARSIS antenna was deployed successfully in June 2005 after a series of glitches. It works by sending radio pulses towards the Red Planet and then analysing the time delay and strength of the pulses that bounce back. The radio waves that penetrate the surface rebound when they encounter a sub-surface boundary between materials with different electrical properties - such as rock and water.

But aside from one Apollo 17 radar experiment on the Moon in 1972 - which yielded mixed results - the technique had never been tested.

The most exciting part of this experiment is simply "that it works", says MARSIS co-leader Jeff Plaut of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, US.

And here's the bit of unconfirmed data that has me all overreacting:

Intriguingly, the signal reflected from the bottom of the crater is so strong and appears so flat that it may be liquid water. "If you put water there, that's what the signal might look like," Johnson told New Scientist. But he cautions the data is based on only one pass over the region and could be caused by another material.

:bounce:

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. Waycool.... makes one's mind run wild eh?? On another note, (if

you like science fiction) Red Planet sort of put me in a state as well..... thanks for the article... :)

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. oh DAMN

Where the hell is . . . . Science officer! Get your butt up here. Why was our shielding down? When we KNEW they had rudimentary radar devices searching this planet? Dammit, Janet.
We were supposed to be hidden from these bipedal ape-like critters, but NOOOO, you allowed them to spot our fuel and food supply.

You know what this means? These apes will be LANDING HERE IN PERSON SOON!

[tocqueville]

3. the ESA report

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Results_from_Mars_Express_and_Huygens/SEM7ZTULWFE_0.html

[ChairmanAgnostic]

4. Love it. But I still think of Tom Cruise's ultrasound machine.

We mostly bags of water, carbon based units and idiot savants who may use no more than 12% of our brains, are so myopic, that the idea of foreign life, regardless of how strange it may seem, is impossible, will have several surprises coming soon.

I wonder if the fundies will now seek to ban space exploration because it interferes with their inerrant bible studies.

Think of it. Liquid water - the easiest substance to allow complex chemicals to join, rejoin and travel, and eventually reproduce and evolve. Right in front of our eyes, next door, just past the moon.

awe- some. and then some.

[Boomer]

9. Minor pedantic correction

That's "ugly bags of mostly water", one of my favorite TNG lines of all time, which is why I've never forgotten it.

[Ian David]

5. Can we call it The Sea of Korus?

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A//www.xenite.org/edgar_rice_burroughs/barsoom/&ei=dliOQ9R4lbhqn_CFag&sig2=1jz5YKohtQi8q8mE_yhbbA

[ChairmanAgnostic]

6. THANKS! I forgot all about him.

Now my reading list continues to expand faster than my "waste" line.

[Odin2005]

7. I KNEW that we would eventually find that.

:woohoo:

[Dead_Parrot]

8. Not Oil, then?

Bang goes the mission to Mars.