Lakes on Mars

 The excitement over discovery hinting at potential microorganisms in the clouds of Venus hasn't subsided yet, as new discovery came in - multiple underground lakes on Mars!

Researchers have detected a group of lakes hidden under the red planet’s icy surface.

 

The discovery, reported on 28 September in Nature Astronomy, was made using radar data from the European Space Agency’s Mars-orbiting spacecraft, called Mars Express. It follows the detection of a single subsurface lake in the same region in 2018 — which, if confirmed, would be the first body of liquid water ever detected on the red planet and a possible habitat for life. But that finding was based on just 29 observations made from 2012 to 2015, and many researchers said they needed more evidence to support the claim. The latest study used a broader data set comprising 134 observations from 2012 to 2019.

“We identified the same body of water, but we also found three other bodies of water around the main one,” says planetary scientist Elena Pettinelli at the University of Rome, who is one of the paper’s co-authors. “It’s a complex system.”

The team used a radar instrument on Mars Express called the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS) to probe the planet’s southern polar region. MARSIS sends out radio waves that bounce off layers of material in the planet’s surface and subsurface. The way the signal is reflected back indicates the kind of material that is present at a particular location — rock, ice or water, for example. A similar method is used to identify subsurface glacial lakes on Earth. The team detected some areas of high reflectivity that they say indicate bodies of liquid water trapped under more than one kilometre of Martian ice.

The lakes are spread over about 75,000 square kilometres — an area roughly one-fifth the size of Germany. The largest, central lake measures 30 kilometres across, and is surrounded by 3 smaller lakes, each a few kilometres wide.

On the surface of Mars, the low pressure that results from the planet’s lack of a substantial atmosphere makes liquid water impossible. But scientists have long thought that there could be water trapped under Mars’s surface, perhaps a remnant of when the planet once had seas and lakes billions of years ago. If such reservoirs exist, they could be potential habitats for Martian life. On Earth, life is able to survive in subglacial lakes in places such as Antarctica.

But the amount of salt present could pose problems. It’s thought that any underground lakes on Mars must have a reasonably high salt content for the water to remain liquid. Although this far beneath the surface there might be a small amount of heat from the interior of Mars, this alone would not be enough to melt the ice into water. “From a thermal point of view, it has to be salty,” says Pettinelli.

Lakes with a salt content that is about 5 times that of sea-water can support life, but as the concentration approaches 20 times that of sea-water, life is no longer present, says John Priscu, an environmental scientist at Montana State University in Bozeman.

“There’s not much active life in these briny pools in Antarctica,” says Priscu, whose group studies microbiology in icy environments. “They’re just pickled. And that might be the case [on Mars].”

The presence of the Martian lakes themselves is also still debated. After the 2018 discovery, researchers raised concerns such as the lack of an adequate heat source to turn the ice into water. And, although the latest finding supports the 2018 observation and involves much more data, not everyone is convinced that the identified regions are liquid water.

“If the bright material really is liquid water, I think it’s more likely to represent some sort of slush or sludge,” says Mike Sori, a planetary geophysicist at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.

Jack Holt, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona in Tucson, says that although he thinks the latest data are fine, he isn’t sure about the interpretation. “I do not think there are lakes,” says Holt, who is on the science team for the Mars Shallow Radar sounder (SHARAD) on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. “There is not enough heat flow to support a brine here, even under the ice cap.”

A Chinese mission that is on its way to Mars might offer one way to check the claims. The Tianwen-1 mission will enter orbit in February 2021, and as well as deploying a rover onto the surface, the orbiter will carry a suite of scientific instruments. These include radar equipment that could be used to make similar observations. “Its capabilities are similar to MARSIS and SHARAD,” says David Flannery from the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia.

For the time being, the prospect that these lakes are remnants of Mars’s wet past remains an exciting possibility. “There may have been a lot of water on Mars,” says Pettinelli. “And if there was water, there was the possibility of life.”

From: Nature

 

Mars Vision

There is something about this day, I was writing about October 4. It holds true, even if this time something happened one week earlier. On September 27, 2016 Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, unveiled his plan of colonizing Mars at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico.

The plan calls for flying 10,000 spaceships to create a one million people colony on Mars. Fascinating concept no doubt. Each spaceship should carry 100 passengers. To launch such a spaceship the size of the rocket which would be needed exceeds anything that has been built so far. To demonstrate the scale a comparison of rockets was shown.

Wonder why there is no Space Shuttle in the table? Perhaps to somebody's surprise, the answer is because the Space Shuttle is not actually a rocket. However, the table is missing one rocket which deserves inclusion at least because it would be the closest by performance to the proposed Mars rocket. Energia launch rocket which was a vehicle to carry to orbit Soviet space shuttle Buran. Unlike the US space shuttle however, Energia was a true rocket capable of delivering any payload to orbit, and not only a shuttle.

Among many other things in the presentation, particularly interesting to me was the concept of a cluster of engines which are controlled in such a fashion that they could counteract a failure of any separate engine. It reminded me of something which I was working on for a number of years. This concept was implemented on Energia launch rocket and successfully tested in flight. Unlike it, the US space shuttle was designed with only three main engines fed from the huge fuel tank, and two solid fuel boosters, with practically zero ability to react in case of a failure. Intentionally or not, SpaceX seems learned the lesson. Their jumbo rocket is planned to be equipped with 42 engines.  

Musk has long said that he founded SpaceX in 2002 chiefly to help humanity colonize Mars. Becoming a multiplanet species would serve as an insurance policy, minimizing the risk of humanity's extinction should something terrible happen on Earth, he has said.

Musk reiterated that argument during the IAC presentation Tuesday. But he also put forth another reason why settling Mars is worth the trouble and the risk.

 "It would be an incredible adventure; it would be the most inspiring thing that I can possibly imagine," he said. "Life needs to be more than just solving problems every day. You need to wake up and be excited about the future, and be inspired and want to live."

Can't say better!

Orion

On December 5, 2014, after a long hiatus NASA performed successful launch of its new spacecraft intended for human flight. After the two-orbit unmanned test flight the Orion capsule returned in the Apollo-style splashdown.

As a matter of fact, the Orion spacecraft is designed on the same concept and looks very much like the somewhat enlarged Apollo.

The principal difference is that while Apollo carried three astronauts to the Moon, the bigger Orion is supposed to carry four astronauts to Mars.

This first launch was performed on board of the Delta IV Heavy rocket. In the future, Orion will launch on NASA’s new heavy-lift rocket, the Space Launch System. It is expected to be more powerful than any rocket ever built, at least in its final configuration.

It is worth noting the Elon Musk's statement about his SpaceX new rocket expected to be launched in 2015: “Falcon Heavy will carry more payload to orbit or escape velocity than any vehicle in history, apart from the Saturn V moon rocket, which was decommissioned after the Apollo program". Mr. Musk has to study history of space flight better. While his Falcon Heavy should be able to carry 53 ton to low Earth orbit, Energia heavy lift launcher was able to carry up to 100 ton.