Comments on: Phoenix Confirms Martian Water, Mission Extended

Phoenix Confirms Martian Water, Mission Extended

finite — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:22:12 -0800

"We have water," said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, lead scientist for the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA. "We've seen evidence for this water ice before in observations by the Mars Odyssey orbiter and in disappearing chunks observed by Phoenix last month, but this is the first time Martian water has been touched and tasted."

By: quonsar

quonsar — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:28:59 -0800

hyperbole. machines cannot touch or taste.

By: yort

yort — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:30:46 -0800

but can they swim?

By: monospace

monospace — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:31:10 -0800

Meh. Call me when they find beer.

By: Effigy2000

Effigy2000 — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:32:04 -0800

I too would like to taste and touch that reportedly sweet, sweet Martian water.

By: yort

yort — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:33:22 -0800

least it's water that hasn't been through someone's bladder a million times.

By: penduluum

penduluum — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:33:26 -0800

OH NO! NOT HYPERBOLE!

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:33:37 -0800

Now I am one step closer to my dream of having a bikini contest on the angry red planet. Only three more steps to go. Although they are pretty big steps.

By: bicyclefish

bicyclefish — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:34:13 -0800

"...and as I speak, our scientists are working on a way to divert it to Phoenix."

By: Shepherd

Shepherd — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:37:16 -0800

hyperbole. machines cannot touch or taste. TOUCHTASTEBOT 9000 WEEPS BITTER TEARS IT SHALL NEVER TASTE NOR WIPE AWAY FROM ITS RUST-STAINED CHEEKS

By: tinkertown

tinkertown — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:38:02 -0800

How long until we figure out a way to mine it for the newest trendy bottled water?

By: Floydd

Floydd — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:40:51 -0800

Dan Quayle was right! "Mars is essentially in the same orbit...Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe." Vice President Dan Quayle, 8/11/89

By: Solon and Thanks

Solon and Thanks — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:45:32 -0800

but can they swim? Asking if machines can swim is like asking if submarines can think... erm, no, asking if submarines can... um. Asking if computers can think is like... wait, what's the question?

By: batmonkey

batmonkey — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:45:35 -0800

A whole planet full of NEW water to over-exploit! YAY! :/

By: batmonkey

batmonkey — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:47:22 -0800

I say that, but 6yr old me is really giddy that we can do stuff like hunt for water on Mars now. Thank you, Mr. Bradbury, for providing the fuel for that tiny glee

By: It's Raining Florence Henderson

It's Raining Florence Henderson — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:48:09 -0800

hyperbole. machines cannot touch or taste. Sure they can. They just don't mean it when they tell you they love you.

By: adamrice

adamrice — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:55:46 -0800

I know that Arizona is extremely arid, and water is an increasingly severe problem for the state, but come on people! Mars? You're going to freaking Mars looking for water? There's no way that's economical.

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:57:51 -0800

Meh. Call me when they find ~~beer~~ 87 octane unleaded.

By: thatbrunette

thatbrunette — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:59:22 -0800

I agree with quonsar in that I think scientific information should retain a measure of clarity. When you see "touched and tasted", you think human. If something is written one way to impart some meaning, but actually means something else, that (especially in dealing with science) is shoddy journalism. That said, this is interesting news! Like batmonkey mentioned, this brings out the giddy "I want to be an astronaut" in all of us. :)

By: Postroad

Postroad — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:05:04 -0800

Is it as good as Poland Spring?

By: dibblda

dibblda — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:08:34 -0800

Yawn, they found what they already were 99% sure was there.

By: cmoj

cmoj — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:08:47 -0800

Why should a robot not be able to touch or taste? They built it with instruments made for exactly those purposes.

By: JaredSeth

JaredSeth — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:09:22 -0800

Is it as good as Poland Spring? I could take an empty bottle into the bathroom and bring you back something as "good" as Poland Spring.

By: mark242

mark242 — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:11:44 -0800

What about high-fructose corn syrup? We can't have our sugary drinks without our HFCS!

By: quin

quin — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:29:42 -0800

"Mars is giving us some surprises," said Phoenix principal investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona... finding from orbit of water ice near the surface and deciphering the newly observed stickiness In a couple of decades, when the Martian soil spoors have made their way back to earth, infected us, and created a puppet-master-esque hive mind of the higher life forms on this planet, we're going to regret that we were unable to decipher the 'stickiness' more accurately.

By: It's Raining Florence Henderson

It's Raining Florence Henderson — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:30:15 -0800

Actually, Jupiter's 18th moon, Diabeetus, is made entirely of high-fructose corn syrup. The more you know!

By: penduluum

penduluum — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:33:47 -0800

If something is written one way to impart some meaning, but actually means something else, that (especially in dealing with science) is shoddy journalism. Well, agreed, but the "touched and tasted" in question is actually a quote from the lead scientist, so you can hardly blame the journalist. Also: did it trick anybodyinto thinking that we'd somehow put a person on Mars without it being all over the news? And that s/he'd gone around tasting things?

By: KirkJobSluder

KirkJobSluder — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:34:00 -0800

Ohh, nice derail. It's not hyperbole, it's an anthropomorphic metaphor, and given the array of chemical analysis equipment on that platform, it's a perfectly reasonable one.

By: brownpau

brownpau — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:36:32 -0800

We already knew there was some amount of water locked in Martian polar cap ice. The real find is that it is so shallow, abundant, and accessible. Now, if they find LIQUID water in some form along the way, that'll be HUGE.

By: shmegegge

shmegegge — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:36:44 -0800

"additionally, our space robots have identified what look to be several objects of non-natural origin. specifically, one unbelievably massive rocket engine pointing at the sun. kind of surprised we hadn't seen that one before, to be honest. another was what appeared to be a dry-docked boat, and within said boat a kind of document, several pages long. we're still translating it, but here's what we've got of the title so far... OP_RAT__N IC_ C_BE: RE_U_E G_OBA_ W_RM_NG B_ MO_ING P_AN_T A_AY F_OM S_N"

By: ROU_Xenophobe

ROU_Xenophobe — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:53:18 -0800

Oh, I love that dirty water Barsoom, you're my home

By: Pecinpah

Pecinpah — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:10:23 -0800

When I was a child I used to positively ache with the sense of untapped human potential that the future would doubtlessly allow us access to. Flying cars and personal jet-packs and radio-watches and colonies on Mars and journeys to the center of the Earth and time travel and the turning of the millennium and I was going to be around to see and enjoy all of it. Now I'm an adult and have seen many of these things come to pass and all I can think about is how fucking useless all these hipsters are. Fuck! hipsters ruined my future for me! Gah!

By: finite

finite — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:16:24 -0800

Where are the flying cars? I was promised flying cars!

By: delmoi

delmoi — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:26:17 -0800

swimming robot.

By: Dr-Baa

Dr-Baa — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:28:52 -0800

Seems fitting.

By: pwb503

pwb503 — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:34:16 -0800

What is with that Dan Quayle quote? Does anyone know what he was talking about, or questioned about to prompt that?

By: davejay

davejay — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:50:30 -0800

Yawn, they found what they already were 99% sure was there. The transition from 99% to 100% is the difference between "all evidence points to it" and "there it fucking is, right there, holy shit, I'm gonna touch it! I touched it! Crap! Whoo!" And considering the distance, and the period of time in which we were 99% sure there was no water whatsoever, it's a hell of a journey to have taken. So away with your yawning.

By: Parasite Unseen

Parasite Unseen — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:56:13 -0800

Sailors fighting in the dance hall Oh man, look at those cavemen go

By: grapefruitmoon

grapefruitmoon — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 15:05:41 -0800

This reminds me of Eddie Izzard's bit about Neil Armstrong bringing back moon rocks.

But they went to the Moon and they brought back rock. They brought back rock! Trouble is, we've got rock. That was the one thing we didn't need, wasn't it? "Rock, Neil? I don't know whether you looked at the planet before you took off, but it's made of fucking rock!" "But it's Moon rock..." "Oh, fucking hell! This is Earth rock, Neil, come on! ( mocking ) Earth rock with special minerals. It's rock, isn't it? Have you heard? On the stock market, rock's gone up three points! No, it hasn't, has it? 'Cause it's fucking rock! We wanted diamonds, or sherbet or a squirrel with a gun!" So they went to the Moon and they found rock. They've found ice as well recently, so it's rocks and ice. What an exciting planet! Obviously a party planet. And they went to mars and found more rock, but it's red this time, so... We've got the most boring solar system I've ever heard of...! And I've never heard of any!

(thanks to this site for a transcription. Even I don't have the entirety of Dress to Kill committed to memory verbatim, though I'm getting close.) Water! We've already got water! Call me when they find a planet made of Jell-o.

By: potsmokinghippieoverlord

potsmokinghippieoverlord — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 15:31:58 -0800

Water dissolving...and water removing There is water at the bottom of the ocean UNDER the water Carry the water Water Remov-remov Remove the water from the bottom of the ocean

By: spicynuts

spicynuts — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 15:33:00 -0800

Call me when they find boobies on mars.

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 15:41:22 -0800

OH NO! NOT HYPERBOLE! YES! HYPERBOLE! IN OUTER SPACE!

By: It's Raining Florence Henderson

It's Raining Florence Henderson — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 15:45:37 -0800

IN SPACE, NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU TYPE IN ALL CAPS!!!

By: spicynuts

spicynuts — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 15:48:48 -0800

BUT THEY CAN TASTE YOU

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:00:55 -0800

DESPITE WHAT SUPPOSED "SCIENTISTS" CLAIM, MACHINES CANNOT TOUCH OR TASTE, BUT THEY DO YELL LOUDLY FOR MOTOR OIL AND SPARE PARTS.

By: anthill

anthill — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:03:13 -0800

Another robot swimming and doing other things

By: localroger

localroger — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:52:08 -0800

grapefruitmoon, it's plain where Izzard was going with that but he was just plain wrong. Those rocks told us a great deal about our own world which we never would have figured out without them. In fact, the fact that they all resembled Earth rock more than rocks from other worlds gave us a mighty big hint about how the Moon formed. Those rocks contained knowledge. And the premium on that is infinite. You can quibble that we might have gotten that datum less expensively with unmanned probes as we are now doing with such amazing work on Mars, but back in the day robots weren't nearly as good and there was the whole human adventure thing going on. Would we know today about the Big Collision without Apollo? It's hard to say, but I tend to think we'd be in the early stages of thinking it a crackpot theory in need of refutation, kind of the way the asteroid-vs-dinosaur folks were thought of in the 70's.

By: lukemeister

lukemeister — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 17:19:51 -0800

The URL gives away the true importance of the Moon landing. I agree completely with what localroger said.

By: Ron Thanagar

Ron Thanagar — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 20:25:32 -0800

What's a Martian gotta do to get a glass of water around here anyway?

By: Anderson_Localized

Anderson_Localized — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 00:18:02 -0800

I, for one, welcome our new Martian overlords !!! ----- after they evolve from single-celled amoebic organisms right now swimming around in said discovered water to become fearsome 8-tentacled giant cephalopods, develop spaceflight, and bring to us Earthlings the promise of infinite energy in the form of fusion!

By: grapefruitmoon

grapefruitmoon — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 08:11:46 -0800

(Um, I was joking around/being funny. I know that scientifically, bringing back rock from the moon was actually important.)

By: lukemeister

lukemeister — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 11:08:32 -0800

On the Internet, no one knows you're a dog or a supporter of fundamental research.

By: Goofyy

Goofyy — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 08:45:20 -0800

The notion that machines can neither touch nor taste is some of the most amazing dumb shit I've read on Metafilter, outside the political threads. Things can touch. Car tires touch the road, for example (duh). And what do you think 'taste' is, anyway? It is chemical analysis. Sour/acid, bitter/alkaline, sweet/carbohydrates, and good ol' salt.