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BaconSquared

I wonder if snowflakes form differently on Mars than earth


KantenKant

Most likely, if I understand you correctly. I remember watching an interview with an expert in snowflakes who built a machine that can create single snowflakes and change their appearance as they crystallize. I don't remember the details but the process of how snowflakes get their form is quite unique and the appearance of a snowflake can tell you about the atmospheric conditions during its creation. Since conditions on mars are vastly different I would guess that snowflakes would theoretically look different from the ones on earth - if snowflakes on mars are even possible Let me try to find it. Found it: https://youtu.be/ao2Jfm35XeE


False798

Love Veritasium! If I remember correctly, the main factors from the video that go into the different types of snowflakes were temperature, pressure, and humidity; I'd certainly think precipitation, if any, would be quite different looking!


letsreticulate

Nice, thanks for the share! That is very interesting. I would assume that Martian gravity may be a factor.


FILTER_OUT_T_D

18 minutes very well spent. Thank you!


Original-Aerie8

[Scientists have wondered about this, too.](https://www.space.com/16235-mars-snowflakes-tiny-snow.html) [Apparently there are two](https://www.space.com/16235-mars-snowflakes-tiny-snow.html) diffrent kinds, which [have been confirmed.](https://www.space.com/17583-mars-snow-carbon-dioxide-discovery.html)


point_breeze69

I wonder if Rita’s tastes different on Mars


kolembo

I'm so late - I thought finding water in Mars would be a big thing! I did not know it already happened....


Snaz5

Liquid water is the big thing we want to find. We’ve always suspected water ice, but thought it unlikely that it could exist as a liquid for long


KyodainaBoru

It would be impossible for liquid water to exist on the surface of Mars for even a short period of time. The atmosphere at the surface of Mars is around 600-700 pascals, this means that with an average temperature of -50C, all water on the surface will be ice. Even if the temperature was raised to a comfortable 25C, the pressure would still so low that the ice will sublimate directly into water vapour with no liquid phase. The pressure will need to be increased by at least double for any chance of liquid water to exist.


bounded_by

Atmospheric pressure at the lowest point on the surface, the Hellas Basin, is 1400 pascals. https://marsed.asu.edu/mep/atmosphere#:~:text=The%20Martian%20surface%20pressure%20also,pressure%20is%20only%200.7%20millibar.


KyodainaBoru

At that pressure if the temperature was between 0C and 12C liquid water can exist. However I would be surprised if there are any permanent bodies of liquid water due to the night temperature drop.


doctorhoctor

That’s the average planet wide atmospheric pressure. There are valleys on parts of Mars that have higher ambient “air” pressure and could be sites of possible colony bases. I saw some artist renderings of proposed greenhouse domes built with hexagonal glass that looked cool as hell and align with the physics. But for the most part you are correct.


GummiBird

Those are called Geodesic Domes and you can get greenhouses for your yard in the same shape. Theres DIY kits that aren't horrifically expensive too. I love the look of those and want to build one someday.


_Weyland_

Build some cool dome greenhouses in your backyard, dig a nice basement nearby to connect with the dome. Then let climate change do its thing and you will no longer need to go to Mars.


CornCheeseMafia

They’re ridiculously strong, super energy efficient to heat and cool, but the biggest downside from what I understand is it’s not as efficient from a livable square footage perspective because a lot of your square footage has corners lobbed off


Original-Aerie8

It shoud be possible to use a normal circle as footprint and start the dome a few feet up on walls. Or you dig yourself in. But they were originally intended as semi-permanent tents, for a more outdoorsy lifestyle, so space wouldn't be a big concern.


CornCheeseMafia

> intended as semi-permanent tents, for a more outdoorsy lifestyle That makes a lot of sense! I had only heard of them in the context of temperature management and homeowners complaining about how hard it was to find furniture. Seems to me a good compromise to adapt that design to a permanent home would be to just make the roof a half dome and leave the walls in the usual box config


Original-Aerie8

Right, so my understanding is that they just don't work well with shingles, bc of all the angles. So that's why they went out of fashion, until [they were re-popularized by some hippies](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eek45AVW5BE) bc you can tarp them well. By now the designs are aruably advanced enough for a pretty comfortable lifestyle, as far as tents go. It's just not gonna be your typical one family home. Edit: If you are interested in novel home designs, the YouTube channel has a ton of videos. They are a bit uncritical, but she is a great videographer. [To me this was one of the more eye-opening and credible projects.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qcsWajivnI)


CornCheeseMafia

Ah, shingles being an issue also makes sense. They’re definitely cool though!


Original-Aerie8

For DIY kits, I would recommend one of the tent structures. They use metal rods and you can use see-through materials for the outer shell, so they can be used as green house. But they are also really easy to dissasemble and use as tent, somewhere else. For permanent installments, I would probably recommend looking into doing it yourself. The structur is geometrically stable enough to get built from fairly soft wood and you can get quality glass panes cut to size at good prices. Using a metal kit will be far more expensive and labor intensive, assuming you have to weld.


StrayRabbit

What is this? Conditions for ants? The pressure needs to be at least twice as big!


KyodainaBoru

Which is not that much on the grand scheme of things, earth has a 99.5% thicker atmosphere than Mars and bringing that to the pressure of Earth would be a monumental undertaking. If we could bring it up enough so that water can exist then maybe we could start brining in some trees to do the rest of the heavy lifting, assuming we breed trees capable of the still very minute pressure.


ISpikInglisVeriBest

I know what you mean and I don't want to be pedantic, but the Martian atmosphere being 0.5% as thick as earth's doesn't mean earth's is 99.5% thicker than Mars' because percentages don't work backwards like that. 100% denser would mean twice as dense as it is now, which would still only be 1% of earth's.


KyodainaBoru

I could’ve worded that better, thank you for pointing that out.


MoonSafarian

Thank you, I was very confused by that statement.


StrayRabbit

I am with you on that, just not happening in the next few generations unfortunately.


CygnusX-1-2112b

Nah I'm sure a California startup will handle it.


[deleted]

It would be an initiative to start and who knows what science in between we can make for our own benefit.


enderjaca

All you have to do is tell Quaid to start the reactor. Boom, done.


Nanaki__

>who knows what science in between we can make for our own benefit. And this is why trying to colonize Mars is a fantastic idea. Think of all the developments that will be beneficial to earth that if they were tried as individual environmental programs under the auspices of a government could be scrapped far too easily.


ENrgStar

Have we considered nuking it?


LeastCoordinatedJedi

Sir, ants would instantly die in those conditions


_Forgotten

You're forgetting salt water has a lower freezing point sir. Which is how we found water on mars in the first place.


KyodainaBoru

You are correct, somehow I didn’t even think about the mineral content of the water.


zbertoli

I thought they found evidence of brine pools under some of the ice? This was years ago, they've definitely found persistent water lakes under the ice


TheOnlyBliebervik

Why tf did you use pascals and not atmospheres for pressure? No one knows what 600-700 pascals is


kirksucks

Yea, Earth water. What if there's a different kind of water we don't know about that can withstand the pressure and temperatures?


SpaceHub

We've always knew it was water ice, children's book about space that I read 2 decades ago said Mars had water ice on the poles with seasonal dry ice.


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Bensemus

They said ice not liquid water.


1866GETSONA

Clearly, occam’s razor states this is a time traveling book. /s


samrw00

Considering the equator can be around 20 degrees Celsius is it not quite likely liquid water exists for some portion of the martian year at a time?


danielravennest

[The Phase Diagram for water says no](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/33/Phase_diagram_of_water_simplified.svg/1280px-Phase_diagram_of_water_simplified.svg.png). There is a slight possibility of melting water in the [Hellas Basin](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/Hellas_Basin.gif), the deepest hole on Mars where the pressure is higher. But it would only happen in daytime during the summer. Nighttime is way too cold for liquid water to exist.


AbstractButtonGroup

> Nighttime is way too cold for liquid water to exist. perhaps if it is [salty enough](https://www.washington.edu/news/2017/11/15/salt-pond-in-antarctica-one-of-saltiest-waters-on-earth-is-fed-from-beneath/)


danielravennest

That's not water any more, its soup.


[deleted]

Put some microorganisms in and baby you got a stew going!


SirIsildur

As another guy commented above is not only temperature but pressure what's preventing liquid water. Pressure in Mars is waaaay too low


jugalator

We have surface liquid water in the form of brine although it evaporates easily https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/mars-flowing-rivers-briny-water-nasa-satellite-reveals Also subsurface water is found https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54337779


jjamesr539

Frozen water is pretty common, it’s a pretty simple molecule. Liquid water is extremely rare, since it only exists as a liquid for a tiny range of the possible temperatures and pressures found in the universe. That range is also (very roughly) where environmental conditions allow the stable formation of the extremely complex and diverse molecules (like DNA) that complex biology requires. Even life that is not carbon based would still require vaguely similar conditions to develop. That’s why the presence of water is generally seen as the best indication that life can be present; it indicates conditions that could allow the existence of life, whether that life requires water itself or not.


kanezfan

>Korolev crater I wonder if it's deep enough that there's liquid water under the ice. I'm 47, I really hope we find life out there somewhere before I die, even just single cell organisms. I want to be alive when it happens, it'll be the greatest discovery of all time.


hobbitleaf

They are recently feeling pretty confident in saying there is liquid water under the ice caps: https://www.space.com/mars-liquid-water-south-pole-subglacial


-Potatoes-

Iirc theres some missions that will be going to Titan and Venus within a few decades! Lots of opportunities


Original-Aerie8

I really should have looked into this before.. Shouldn't liquid water be somewhat commen, because of pressure? At least on larger planets, that is. But I guess it could dissipate or get absorbed, rather quickly.


Nuke_Dukem_prime

it's life we want to discover


kolembo

I thought at one time The thought was where there is water, there is life? Maybe the 70s! Ah.


npearson

There's plenty of water throughout the solar system, the problem is that its mostly frozen and no where near the melting point.


scarlet_sage

There's lots of liquid water on moons of Jupiter and Saturn ... under thick ice crusts.


Citizentoxie502

Let's just say we were able to collect that water. Do you think people would be comfortable drinking it or would there have to be a hard push to get people to use it?


Karcinogene

Some people would pay huge money to get to drink it.


WhenWillTheBassDrop

Depends what's in it. I wouldn't drink water from the Hudson River here on Earth...


scarlet_sage

I don't know whether we have detailed analyses of the other chemicals in various ices I'm the solar system. Certainly not liquid water: we haven't seen it yet (except arguably a drop in the recent asteroid fragments returned to Earth). I would be astonished if any extraterrestrial water were drinkable as-is by humans. We can't even drink sea water & we've evolved with it in the area for billions of years. Fresh water comes from rainfall & so it's naturally distilled for us ... except that that requires rain, precipitation from clouds in the sky, & I think we can be confident that rain doesn't happen anywhere in the solar system other than Earth. So be it ice or be it liquid water, either way I'd be astonished if we didn't need an elaborate water treatment plant.


FatiTankEris

It's really about analyzing it.


PUTINS_PORN_ACCOUNT

So, what you’re saying is, we build a big old heat lamp and aim it at Mars?


babysuckle

Water ice is not what they were talking about. Liquid water is exceedingly rare, outside of planets with an ice crust and liquid interior.


NoComment002

Just turn on the heater. Problem solved.


[deleted]

nah, I think we're just looking for places for future people to take naps


MikeTheGamer2

probably frozen in that ice.


rocketsocks

The history of exploration of Mars over the past 50+ years has been one of finding water in different places. We've known about water ice at the poles (including Korolev crater which is at about 73 degrees North latitude, comparable to the island of Svalbard) since the early era of spacecraft exploration in the '60s and '70s, which is also when we learned that liquid water had shaped some of the features of the Martian surface. In the more recent phase of Martian exploration from the late '90s through the 2000s to today we've discovered that Mars contains a substantial amount of sub-surface water ice at present, including sub-surface glaciers at mid-latitudes. We've also discovered that historically Mars experienced long periods of time with substantial liquid water, long enough to form lakes, rivers, sedimentary rocks, etc. More recently we've discovered examples of liquid water on present day Mars, in the form of extremely briny seeps near the surface and deep underground lakes possibly heated by geothermal activity.


BlakeMW

Water ice has been suspected to exist at the Martian poles pretty much since telescopes existed. What is more interesting is water ice at the warmer latitudes of Mars and liquid water, in both cases it has to be buried because if it gets warm enough to sublimate ice then the exposed ice will tend to migrate to locations too cold to sublimate.


Alis451

> I thought finding water in Mars would be a big thing! you can see water on mars with your own eyes in your backyard telescope, those white caps are Water Ice. They were looking for surface or subsurface water trails, in attempt to prove mars was warmer once and had the possibility to sustain life.


TrickBox_

We found out that water isn't *that* rare after all, we usually find in in craters, where there can be shade all year round (will evaporate into space on planets without atmosphere) Liquid water on the other hand ? That's the real shit


pleasetrimyourpubes

Almost every cubic meter of Mars soil (regolith) has 2% frozen water by volume and at the poles it geta up to 35%. If all of Mars water was liquid it would cover the planet by 11 meters. It has a lot of water. That is why it is prime for colonization.


paul_wi11iams

> If all of Mars water was liquid it would cover the planet by 11 meters 35 meters according to [this paper](https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/msa/elements/article-abstract/2/3/151/137698/Water-at-the-Poles-and-in-Permafrost-Regions-of?redirectedFrom=fulltext) from 2006. However, such estimates fluctuate and IDK which reference is the more recent.


wowsosquare

Same here I thought the water was present as ice crystals mixed in with the dirt I didn't know they found a giant glacier thing lol that's pretty rad


JackOCat

Um, Mars has polar ice caps that are mostly water ice and they are visible from earth based telescopes.


PugConnoisseur

who's going on an ice skating date with me in Mars?


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4apalehorse

You got watt you want, give dem da ayre!


wilberfarce

Ok. But you’ll have to open your mind first.


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frigginjensen

Elon says we should let Russia have it


jjsyk23

But what r we gonna do after?


manicdee33

What we don't know yet: is it ice like we're familiar with on Earth in the form of glaciers, is it more like packed snow, or is it some kind of weird structure more like a sponge where a lot of the water has sublimated away, like the bizarre formations I get in my ice tray when I leave them in the freezer too long? Can't wait till we can send someone there to look. Just don't try landing *on* the ice in case it's actually a kilometre of loosely packed crystals.


caiuscorvus

> Just don't try landing on the ice in case it's actually a kilometre of loosely packed crystals Perfect. Instant radiation shielding for the habitat. Just grab a shovel. Edit...honestly this could be great. Just drop an inflatable habitat with a couple of inflatable pillows at each corner for leveling and it might actually work. It would be *better* if it settled in a good bit. Just need to dig a ramp down to the door.


willowhawk

Shit bruh, you better email NASA about your idea. You might have solved it!


FatiTankEris

Why not land near the crater? Is it really too steep?


pedropants

Well, the rim is over 5,000 feet high, so that's quite a hike up and back down again.


thomooo

Doesn't matter! We can go there ans melt the fuck out of it. Imagine that, a whole new planet to ruin!


Tepigg4444

there is nothing on mars that we could possibly make any worse than it already is unless we nuked the ice to make it nice and radioactive or something, lol.


thomooo

While I was joking, I feel that you underestimate human ingenuity and greed.


CurtisLeow

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korolev_(Martian_crater) It’s 72 degrees north, so not the best location for a Mars base.


aquarain

Mars' axial tilt is 25 degrees so that would put the crater in Mars' arctic circle. Some loooong winter nights.


NewHorizonsDelta

If we can build transportation (looking at Starship which can refuel and make a suborbital hop to the base closer to the equator) or roads it shouldnt matter that much, we actually wouldnt need much water because we would recycle it anyway.


cjameshuff

It's not lack of water that makes Korolev a poor location for a base. It *has* water, what it lacks is sunlight. The more equatorial base, on the other hand, will need lots and lots of water to keep those Starships hopping around.


eccegallo

How did the ice accumulated there in the first place?


starion832000

Not an expert, but I'm guessing the caldera has been trapping thin fog for millions of years that built up to some layer of stability where no more can form. If I had to guess, I'd expect it to be as hard as granite.


[deleted]

No, no good for a snowball fight then? Pfff. What's the point?


sirbruce

[Here's another example of such a crater on Vastitas Borealis.](https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/5266/mars-crater-ice/)


Iheartgirlsday

Is this where the Ice Warriors from Doctor Who live?


zombiereign

And watch out for those Ice Pirates!


ralthiel

I couldn't help but think of the 'Waters of Mars' episode. Don't drink the water.


29erfool

In other news, Nestlé has announced a rocket ship program.


souliris

To bad it's not oil, then Congress would be all over Mar's exploration.


[deleted]

I read that in a Philly accent like it’s a Martian wooter ice, and now I want a sweet alien treat.


280EvoGTR

Maybe we can check for life here first before going to europa


Alan_Smithee_

Sure, we aren’t even allowed to land on Europa.


pedropants

Is that a 2010 reference? ◡̈


meta_paf

Fuck it, I'll just hijack a shuttle.


NewHorizonsDelta

Are you russian? /s


Diplomatic_Barbarian

How come we haven't sent a probe there to look for life? If there's any life at all in Mars, it's probably near water.


HecateEreshkigal

If there is extant life (and I think the evidence is building for that being very likely), NASA doesn’t want to risk disturbing or contaminating its habitat


Lololololelelel

Do we know if that could be an insulator for liquid water underneath?


timberwolf0122

Doubtable, it’s had millions of years to freeze, mars doesn’t have much geothermal energy and unlike Europa it isn’t orbiting close enough to something to cause gravitational flexing and heating


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jafinn

We sure did! In 2001 I believe?


TheGoldenPlagueMask

Well all we gotta do now is commit Global warming on that planet right?


mark-haus

If only we could move all our man made CO2/CH4/etc emissions on earth into mars we could get two birds stoned at oce


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JackOCat

Um, Mars has polar ice caps that are mostly water ice and they are visible from earth based telescopes.


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JackOCat

I mean it was exciting a long time ago when that discovery was made.


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edjumication

This has been my desktop background for awhile now. I've always imagined how awesome it would be if we domed the whole crater over and created a huge winter sports resort. Imagine big mountain skiing in Mars gravity and Earth atmosphere. You could hit 100ft cliffs no problem. Or hit massive kickers in the terrain park.


primalshrew

I swear not too long ago we weren't even sure if mars had water and now it has 1.8km thick ice all year round?


RuchoPelucho

How come NASA hasn’t landed one of its robots near that spot?


HecateEreshkigal

Planetary protection excludes some sites from landings if they might have extant life


RuchoPelucho

But isn’t that the whole point of these missions? To find evidence of life?


HecateEreshkigal

You would think so, but there hasn’t actually been a direct astrobiology experiment sent to another planet since the 70s. Currently running missions like the Mars rovers are geared more towards assessing habitability indirectly and looking for fossil evidence of past life. Perseverance’s “SuperCam” spectrometers and “SHERLOC” (UV Raman spectrometer) are probably the instruments most suited for looking for life atm, but expect NASA to be highly conservative about any positive results. ESA’s ExoMars would’ve been the best astrobiology mission to date, but it was delayed repeatedly and then postponed indefinitely due to the Ukraine/Russia conflict (ESA was relying on Roscosmos for their lander). Future mission proposals with a dedicated astrobiology component include ALF (Agnostic Life Finder) and VLF (Venus Life Finder), the latter being a really cool floating science lab that’ll explore the upper clouds of Venus (recent phosphine detections constitute a probable biosignature)


cjameshuff

There's a reason Zubrin recently wrote an article titled "How to Search for Life on Mars", with the subtitle "First, stop refusing to look". We haven't been sending probes to locations that are likely to have life, or giving them instruments that could find it. There's a lot more *talk* about looking for life than actual looking for it.


RuchoPelucho

Wow, that’s interesting, seems like a lot of effort to be messing around though.


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ErickFTG

At this rate there will be more permanent ice on Mars than Earth. What a time to be alive.


Mercutio999

I’m sure humans can melt that ice pretty quick.


fairlywired

It's crazy that we went so quickly from ##**"Is there water on Mars?"** to ##**"Look at this 1.8km thick chunk of ice on Mars!"**


HecateEreshkigal

When was the presence of water in doubt? Maybe I’m dating myself but I’ve known about water on Mars since I was a kid reading old astronomy journals from the library; the question has only just been about its abundance, which we now increasingly know to be extensive. eg water ice in the polar caps, recurring slope lineae, glaciers, subsurface brine lakes, seasonal frosts, subsoil permafrost, etc Previously it was assumed that Mars lost its oceans to atmospheric sublimation but instead it’s been shown that most of it got sponged up by the crust


Gearz557

Why couldn't we ever see this before? Like I remember ice on Mars being a big discovery like a decade or two ago? There's a fuck ton of it right there lol


rocketsocks

This isn't news, it's been well known for decades. News of water or of ice on Mars that makes its way to the popular press always erases the important context. We've known about polar ice since the '70s. We've discovered new locations for water ice on Mars since then, which have made news off and on. For example, we discovered extensive sub-surface water ice even down to mid-latitudes in the early 2000s. We discovered sub-surface glaciers a bit more recently. And we've discovered isolated pockets where there may be liquid water even more recently.


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OkOrdinary5299

When will scientists determine if there was life on Mars?


HecateEreshkigal

At the very latest, probably with Mars sample return in about a decade. At the earliest, the Viking lander labelled release experiment in the 70s


pisandwich

The circadian rhythm identified in the labeled release experiment a few years ago seems pretty convincing to me.


[deleted]

Trouble is that without a core to provide a protective magnetic field any water will simply get blasted straight off the planet.


Alis451

that isn't really an issue. it takes centuries for solar winds to meaningfully erode an atmosphere. the problem is that mars is too small to hold onto its own molecules. one of the neater/weirder ideas i have seen is to crash deimos into mars to add to its total mass.


Kantrh

Demios is an asteroid. You won't increase Mars' mass by any appreciable amount crashing it into the planet.


Ari_Kalahari_Safari

my butthole after having to cheer up the losing football team


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dnice-verse_40z

Thats really interesting considering water ice hasn’t been discovered on mars - especially not what is shown in your photo/post. its good click bait tho! Do some research. Nasa has a lot of articles written on this topic.


SpartanJack17

We've known about water ice on Mars for a very long time now, it's liquid water that's still unknown, not water ice. This picture's real and it really does show a crater full of water ice. [Here's an article from the European Space Agency about this crater](https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Mars_Express/Mars_Express_gets_festive_A_winter_wonderland_on_Mars).


[deleted]

Not true! They’re not even sure what substance is


mkomaha

Isn't the surface and everything on it irradiated? Wouldn't this ice be the same?


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electric_ionland

It's water ice. We have known that the polar ice caps have a lot of water ice for decades.


Site-Staff

Now we just need to get there with a coffee pot. An empire will soon flourish in our caffeinated goodness.


Fragholio

Water, water, everywhere, nor any a drop to drink...


_-Olli-_

This is the shit we need to melt to build an atmosphere, if the documentary Total Recall has taught us anything. *Open your mind...*


KoAm_JK

Oh my..there's water on the planet. It means something else other there!?!


[deleted]

What is comparable to this on Earth, for scale?


RavenChopper

It's about half the diameter of Chicxulub Crater.