Maybe that's not liquid water on Mars after all

https://phys.org/news/2025-11-liquid-mars.html

by howard941 • 8 months ago

53 34 8 months ago

Is there a reason we have not yet explored it directly with a rover? Aren’t there multiple rovers on mars? Surely taking samples from this ice is more important than examining rocks??

jvanderbot2• 8 months ago

Because launching a robot is a multi billion dollar affair and the robots we have launched are very far from the south pole. This is a whole planet after all, and they move on the scale of meters per second for maybe a few hours / day.

NitpickLawyer2• 8 months ago

Because launching a robot is a multi billion dollar affair

They don't have to be though. Spirit and Opportunity entire project budget (including design, building, launching, and operating for 90 days) was 820M. Even with the mission extensions the total cost is < 1B. And a lot of things have changed since then. Launches are cheaper, tech has improved and some recent missions have proven that even CotS hardware can exceed expectations (see the helicopter).

I would love to see NASA do something like the CLPS but for Mars. They could pay for launch services (which are way cheaper now with F9 / NG), and help with EDL (using the same parachute + airbags thing that has worked before), and leave the rover parts to 3rd parties.

We could have universities join the competition, building the rovers, exploring CotS stuff, autonomous driving and so on. Lower stakes than the decadal big rovers (Curiosity & Perseverance), but also cool and useful to train the next generations of students. Hell, I bet even companies could enter the race, with Toyota / Tesla / whoever else supporting this effort.

antonvs3• 8 months ago

they move on the scale of meters per second

That’s still 2 or 3 orders of magnitude too high. The top speed of the Perseverance and Curiosity rovers is around 45 millimeters per second.

worldsavior• 8 months ago

I assume because of the conditions on Mars. The ice could actually be much deeper than thought.

skerit• 8 months ago

The furthest distance a robot on mars has traveled from its landing position isn't even 50km. Over many, many years.

For example, on Nasa's website it says this about Perseverance:

This map view shows the route NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has taken since its February 2021 landing at Jezero Crater to July 2024, when it took its “Cheyava Falls” sample. As of October 2024, the rover has driven over 30 kilometers (18.65 miles), and has collected 24 samples of rock and regolith as well as one air sample.

That's about 8.5km per year.

So I think they would have to land a new one pretty close.

RobotToaster• 8 months ago

Why does it move so slow?

Isn't it solar powered? So it could just keep moving in the right direction?

cess11• 8 months ago

The Jezero crater where the Perseverance rover has been roaming looks a lot like it was a lake and was expected to tell us whether Mars has held life. It was a good guess because the rover has found clay and organic molecules.

Human habitation on Mars is a pipe dream for oligarchs, most serious space people are more interested in extraterrestrial life and the history of the solar system.

antonvs3• 8 months ago

Human habitation on Mars is a pipe dream for oligarchs

It’s just the one oligarch in particular, isn’t it?

IAmBroom• 8 months ago

You say that, but I once suggested that humans weren't going to colonize Mars in this century, and got downvoted - here on HN.

A lot of people seem to think, hmm, we've been watching fictional people go to Mars since Buck Rogers; it must be pretty achievable. (Hint: it's not.)

alimw• 8 months ago

I think I read somewhere that we have so far stayed away from regions that could support life in order to reduce the risk of contamination? I hope that future missions will be as responsible but there's the danger they won't be.

nephihaha2• 8 months ago

Because ice surfaces can be very unsafe for equipment. There can hidden gas pockets in them, chasms and other unstable surfaces.

Maybe that's not liquid water on Mars after all

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