Comments on: Mars soil confirmed 2 percent water

By: SteveS

SteveS — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 13:20:35 +0000

After the Galileo days of pouring through the Jovian system images if I remember correctly.

I’ll give it a try.

By: DanS

DanS — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 10:11:21 +0000

Looks like you would just need to ciopy-n-paste to it:

http://mars4all.tripod.com/home/id11.html

By: DanS

DanS — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 10:07:57 +0000

Dan’s Smoker

By: DanS

DanS — Sun, 29 Sep 2013 00:39:41 +0000

Thanx, Robert. I haven’t html’ed since I left.

By: RobVG

RobVG — Sun, 29 Sep 2013 00:31:56 +0000

URL must be in parentheses

By: podrock

podrock — Sat, 28 Sep 2013 21:57:35 +0000

Little pencil icon, right there next to your post, opens a better editor.

By: DanS

DanS — Sat, 28 Sep 2013 21:30:19 +0000

It occurs at all temperatures. Watch the ice cubes in your freezer shrink over time. Considering the millions, possibly billions of years involved, just about all the water would have to be minerally and chemically locked.

By: ER

ER — Sat, 28 Sep 2013 20:56:32 +0000

2% (I presume that’s by mass) is a lot of moisture for an arid climate soil.

Some of that is in the form of water ice, permafrost. But I wonder how much is locked up chemically in the rocks, or as a hydrate or in solid solution with something else. That would be less likely to sublimate in warmer temperatures and eventually be broken down into oxygen (which would go right into the rocks) and hydrogen, which would escape into space.

The text mentions the soil is toxic to microbial life. Would it be toxic to humans if they brought some into a spacecraft, say, on their boots?

It must be a very strange place.