back to article Mars was once a desert with intermittent oases, Curiosity data suggests

New models from recent Martian probe data suggest the fourth planet from the Sun once hosted a fluctuating desert environment with intermittent oases of water. Researchers led by the University of Chicago's Edwin Kite found evidence for carbon dioxide cycling on the Red Planet in data from Curiosity rover. The discovery of …

  1. Martin Gregorie

    This looks like a spot of very nice work by the Curiosity project teams. Way to go, gals and guys!

  2. BadRobotics

    Elon Musk and the 3.5 billion year question

    Does Elon really think he can reverse 3.5 billions years of planet evolution....in what a few hundred years??

    1. DS999 Silver badge

      Re: Elon Musk and the 3.5 billion year question

      Did Musk actually claim that Mars could be made habitable? I thought he was talking about living in domes, or more likely underground. If he really has talked about terraforming Mars as if it is possible he's further detached from reality than I thought.

      1. Philo T Farnsworth Silver badge

        Re: Elon Musk and the 3.5 billion year question

        > If he really has talked about terraforming Mars as if it is possible he's further detached from reality than I thought.

        The short answer to the first part is yes.

        At to the latter part of the sentence, your guess is as good as mine.

      2. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: Elon Musk and the 3.5 billion year question

        "Did Musk actually claim that Mars could be made habitable? I thought he was talking about living in domes, or more likely underground. If he really has talked about terraforming Mars as if it is possible he's further detached from reality than I thought."

        Yes, he thought that nuking Mars from orbit would do it. This is why you will see him wearing a "Nuke Mars" shirt. It won't, BTW, and it didn't take a lot of study to show why. Thousands of nukes have been detonated on Earth and there's no discernible temperature rise from that. Nobody is going to hand Elon tens of thousands of nuclear weapons to try it out on Mars. Just warming up the planet wouldn't be helpful anyway. In all likelihood, it would un-freeze loads of volatiles that would be blow off the planet and reduce the amount of those inventories. I'm no "Red", but nuking Mars would also sterilize the places that are the best locations for searching for life or evidence of past life.

        Domes are a fantasy as well. As Mars has lost its magnetic field, it's open to the solar wind and GCRs (Galactic Cosmic Radiation). Domes would not provide enough protection from that radiation for humans to remain healthy unless they were living underground.

        If Elon really wants a refuge, he could spend far less money buying up swathes of Greenland and setting up a compound where he can have scores of wives and require others to give up their wives to him as well if he wants. Too cold? How about South America, Africa or someplace else where he'd be under the protection of sovereign government (Dictator) and mostly be untouchable. Many of those places don't seem to have an issue with having one's own standing army. That would give him free air, faster shipping of supplies and more sunlight as well as a magnetic field.

        1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

          Re: Thousands of nukes have been detonated on Earth

          Yes, but most of them have been detonated underground.

          Apparently, the official total is just over 2000. So, thousands being technically correct, it's not like Humanity has been blasting ten nukes per day for fifty years.

          Still, over 500 atmospheric tests seems quite enough for me.

          1. MachDiamond Silver badge

            Re: Thousands of nukes have been detonated on Earth

            "Yes, but most of them have been detonated underground."

            Fine, but that heat would still be added to the system. Blasting Mars for 50 years with 10 maximum yield devices per day isn't in the cards. There isn't an atmosphere to trap the heat. I'm still convinced that the Nitrogen problem is the biggest stumbling block.

            1. DS999 Silver badge

              Re: Thousands of nukes have been detonated on Earth

              I think the biggest problem is that even if you can find enough oxygen/nitrogen to get a tolerable atmospheric pressure for humans, the amount of CO2 required for enough of a greenhouse effect to keep the planet livable (above freezing enough of the year for stuff to grow) isn't survivable by humans - and well below the CO2 survivability threshold you can live but you will suffer serious effects of CO2 poisoning.

              Its just not possible. We'd have better luck REMOVING the CO2 from Venus and making it habitable than making Mars habitable.

              Musk needs to realize that a Mars colony is a folly, and the only place it makes sense to live off planet in the next few centuries is the Moon. If you have to live underground anyway you might as well do it where you're close enough rescue is possible if something goes wrong (so long as "wrong" isn't explosive decompression) and the lack of atmosphere can be an advantage since you don't have to worry about months long dust storms killing your solar output.

              I think he (and Trump) just want to go to Mars because they can claim credit for the first. Heck even if we didn't end up going to Mars until 2045 and the mission that made it was started under another president, if Trump was somehow still alive he'd still try to take credit for it claim for it saying "nobody ever thought of sending humans to Mars until I proposed it!"

              1. MachDiamond Silver badge

                Re: Thousands of nukes have been detonated on Earth

                "We'd have better luck REMOVING the CO2 from Venus and making it habitable than making Mars habitable."

                The really far out concepts would have people living in floating habitats where their can be a viable atmosphere. With Venus so hot, finding away of binding the carbon in the CO2 and not having it baked back out would be a challenge. The beauty of studies for that might lead to processes usable on Earth.

                I'm all for stations being built in the moon. I believe there is enough research that can be done to justify the investment. If there are industrial processes that would be better to do on the moon, that would bring in private investment to expand and maybe one day take over operation of a lunar base with nations renting space for science agencies. Initially, there's needs to be the pure research and that's often State funded.

              2. Andrew Scott Bronze badge

                Re: Thousands of nukes have been detonated on Earth

                he likely never read the martian chronicles.

              3. Androgynous Cow Herd

                Re: Thousands of nukes have been detonated on Earth

                Shhhh!!

                He might read this!!

                Go ahead Elon. Go to Mars. It'll be fine, really.

            2. mpi

              Re: Thousands of nukes have been detonated on Earth

              The biggest stumbling block is gravity.

              Let's be veeeery science fictional for a second, and assume we had really large (think: Container Ship-Large), really cheap, really efficient super hyper mega rockets, to ferry mass around the solar system with, then bringing in organic nitrogen compounds in large quantities at least starts sounding kinda sorta doable.

              But we cannot increase a planets gravity. Period, end of sentence, that's all she wrote. And while we don't know what would happen, it's a pretty safe bet, backed up by 22 Million years of hominid, not to mention 518 Million years of vertebrate evolution, that our bodies wouldn't like living at 1/3rd Earths gravity for long.

              1. MachDiamond Silver badge

                Re: Thousands of nukes have been detonated on Earth

                "our bodies wouldn't like living at 1/3rd Earths gravity for long."

                The only two data points we have at this point is 1G on Earth and 0G on a space station. This is another reason why the moon is a good stepping stone. What does 1/6G do to humans? There's guesses, but no data. Once there is data, some assumptions might hold water when it comes to humans on Mars. If it turns out that living on the moon is as bad for health as living on a space station, that won't look good for stays on the red planet. The moon being a much cheaper and safer place to find that out.

                Organic Nitrogen compounds that plants need is one thing, but humans breathe mostly Nitrogen. Our bodies use Oxygen, but pure Oxygen is dangerous so a mostly inert gas is needed to temper it.

              2. DS999 Silver badge

                Re: Thousands of nukes have been detonated on Earth

                Yeah I don't buy that because we evolved at 1G that we can only tolerate 1G. There are some obvious reasons why zero gravity is a problem, but it doesn't follow that 1/3 or 1/6 gravity would be. Sure you might still lose muscle tone and bone density in lower gravity environments over time, but astronauts were able to recover from a year in zero gravity so it seems likely they could tolerate much longer periods in 1/6th gravity, especially since a Moon base/colony would have more room than ISS so they could have a proper gym.

                If instead of squatting 300 pounds on Earth you're squatting 1800 pounds on the Moon you're building/maintaining the same amount of muscle, causing your bones to gain/maintain the same amount of density. Normal day to day activities like walking around and sitting wouldn't put the same load on your muscles and bones but that's what the gym would be for. Maybe you run on a treadmill wearing some sort of weight suit or having elastic straps on your shoes that pull down you down to make it as if you're running at your Earth weight instead of Moon weight, so that you get a comparable cardio workout.

                All the issues specific to zero gravity would not exist in 1/6th gravity. That's weaker than Earth gravity but it is still gravity. All those internal body processes that rely on gravity would still be getting the gravity just less of it. Heck for all we know it would be beneficial to our health or lifespan to live in 1/6th gravity. Or alternatively, maybe living at 2G would be better - we just aren't likely to have any way to test that within the lifetime of anyone currently alive.

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: Thousands of nukes have been detonated on Earth

                  Maybe you run on a treadmill wearing some sort of weight suit or having elastic straps on your shoes that pull down you down to make it as if you're running at your Earth weight instead of Moon weight

                  Your proposal of elastic straps probably contravenes my patent on the use of shoelaces for levitation, whereby you can lift yourself off the ground by pulling your own shoelaces hard enough. Don't believe me? Try it.

          2. Catkin

            Re: Thousands of nukes have been detonated on Earth

            I'd highlight the difference in yields. The largest confirmed underground test (Cannikin) was about 5Mt, compared to the largest atmospheric test (Tsar) of 50Mt.

        2. Catkin

          Re: Elon Musk and the 3.5 billion year question

          I recall reading an article about teraforming Mars where the proposed energy came from using the nukes to deorbit chunks of Phobos. This was in the 90s,where the distribution of trapped carbon dioxide was less well understood so I can understand it not being workable on that front but, from sheer kinetic energy, it is possible to warm the Martian atmosphere appreciably for a time.

          1. DS999 Silver badge

            Re: Elon Musk and the 3.5 billion year question

            Yes raining chunks of Moon down on Mars would increase its temperature temporarily from kinetic energy, but then create a nuclear winter from the thick dust clouds that would block all sunlight reaching the surface for decades.

        3. Evil Auditor Silver badge

          Re: Elon Musk and the 3.5 billion year question

          If Elon really wants a refuge, he could spend far less money buying up swathes of Greenland and setting up a compound...

          MachDiamond, why do you hate Greenland?! Or South America, Africa for that matter? Let Musk fsck off to Mars! One way, please.

          1. MachDiamond Silver badge

            Re: Elon Musk and the 3.5 billion year question

            "MachDiamond, why do you hate Greenland?! Or South America, Africa for that matter? Let Musk fsck off to Mars! One way, please."

            It's the age old dodge of dumping toxic waste in out of the way places. It's not that I hate them, but there is a lot of open space. Out of sight, out of mind.

            1. Evil Auditor Silver badge
              Thumb Up

              Re: Elon Musk and the 3.5 billion year question

              You've got a point there. And if sacrificing Greenland solved this problem, it's a price I'm willing to pay.

              Yes, I have no relations with Greenland whatsoever. And maybe we should ask the Greenlanders first. But it's all for the greater good, isn't it...

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Elon Musk and the 3.5 billion year question

            I don't think Greenland will escape the type of catastrophy he is worried about. But I wonder if it's us not asteroids, more likely IMHO. Maybe those theories about a race living under the ground are true, they went there to escape and got to like it! Must be warm down there though. "Hey Mephistopheles turn the aircon up, it's getting too hot again".

        4. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Elon Musk and the 3.5 billion year question

          "Thousands of nukes have been detonated on Earth and there's no discernible temperature rise"

          But here must be! Al Gore said there was. What about all that dust thrown up, the nuclear winter effect? Are you telling me that the earth and sun's natural processes are more important than us? Can't be true we must stop driving, travelling, having energy, eat insects, stop farming now ... unless it's for AI and the control grid that doesn't produce warming.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Elon Musk and the 3.5 billion year question

        It's possible but not with rockets. Unless there's some magic catalyst yet to be discovered.

    2. Claude Yeller

      Re: The really original solution

      Was proposed by Isaac Asimov, published in "The Martian Way".

      Warning Spoiler Alert

      Get your water from Saturn's rings (nowadays, we know Jupiter has them too). Go their, weld a rocket engine spewing water onto the thing and send them on a collision course with Mars. (Read the book for details)

      Not very realistic, but it has the advantage that it actually gets new water to Mars staying within laws of nature. And who knows, Asimov published other wild ideas that proved to be less impossible than initially thought.

      1. Claude Yeller

        PS Re: The really original solution

        PS

        Saturn's rings are full of chunks of water ice in all sizes.

      2. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: The really original solution

        "Get your water from Saturn's rings (nowadays, we know Jupiter has them too)"

        I expect there is plenty in the asteroid belt as well. Set up a construction shack on Ceres to run the operation. Order to delivery times would be much shorter and mining the asteroid belt for material to build the craft would be cheaper than sending them from Earth.

        1. Claude Yeller

          Re: plenty in the asteroid belt

          I forgot what arguments Asimov used to skip the astroid belt for Saturn in his story. The ultimate reason was probably to strengthen the narrative.

          You obviously get the water at the nearest watering hole.

        2. X5-332960073452
          Go

          Re: The really original solution

          Take a look at - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3230854/

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Elon Musk and the 3.5 billion year question

      You have to start some time. Does Gates/Gore/Milliband think they can?

  3. M.V. Lipvig Silver badge

    Oops, sorry about that.

    I was on my way home from visiting Pluto and was thirsty.

    1. DJV Silver badge

      Re: Oops, sorry about that.

      No problem, as you need to keep your moist-ness intact!

      1. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: Oops, sorry about that.

        "No problem, as you need to keep your moist-ness intact!"

        Ewww. That's make me think of old Fren-okun females. MOIST, THEY MUST BE KEPT MOIST!!!

  4. Tron Silver badge

    Strewth.

    'A fluctuating desert environment with intermittent oases of water.'

    So Mars was like the Australian outback then. In honour of this discovery, perhaps Curiosity's location could be renamed after Australia's most famous citizen, Kylie Minogue.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    LOL

    So summarising the scientists found we have a planet that demonstrates that the greenhouse effect and CO2 are necessary for life and what happens if you remove CO2. Well blow me down, who'd have thought it ...

    1. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

      I suspect we need to sit down and have a conversation about photosynthesis.

      That was what you took out of this?

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