from the where'd-they-hide-the-blender? dept.
Evidence of ground ice has been found on Vesta, the second largest asteroid in the asteroid belt:
Research at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering has revealed new evidence for the occurrence of ground ice on the protoplanet Vesta.
[...] The team used a special technique called "bistatic radar" on the Dawn spacecraft to explore the surface texture of Vesta at the scale of a few inches. On some orbits, when the spacecraft was about to travel behind Vesta from Earth's perspective, its radio communications waves bounced off Vesta's surface, and mission personnel on the ground at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) received the signals back on Earth.
Vesta was thought to be a dry body:
Now, thanks to the latest round of results from NASA's Dawn mission, we have learned Asimov was right about Vesta all along. As researchers at the University of Southern California write in Tuesday's Nature Communications [open, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-00434-6] [DX], the probe discovered unusually large smooth regions on the otherwise craggy asteroids. The researchers linked these with higher hydrogen concentrations, which in turn strongly suggest the presence of ground ice on Vesta.
"It was believed to be a dry body," NASA researcher Essam Heggy, Ph.D. tells Inverse, saying previous evidence for water on Vesta had, at best, been ambiguous. Dawn's findings erase those ambiguities. It's just the latest of many findings in recent years showing that water and ice are damn near everywhere in the solar system, adding Vesta to a list that already includes Mars, the moons Europa and Enceladus, and its fellow asteroid Ceres. "The more we search, the more we find ice and water in the solar system," says Heggy, "and the more we realize water is not unique to our planet."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @05:22AM
Water water everywhere
nor a drop to drink
that's why the plants crave
electro-lyte
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @05:49AM
I'm going to investa in that idea.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Thursday September 14 2017, @06:38AM
(No spoilers pls, I've yet to watch season 2)
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday September 14 2017, @08:00AM
That the resources are out there. We *can* be a space-faring civilization.
What we need is the money, the research and the engineering to make it happen.
So what the hell are you doing wasting time on SN? Let's go out there!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday September 14 2017, @08:06AM (3 children)
Where there is ground ice, there is vodka chili cocktail.
Where there is vodka chili cocktail, there is civilization.
We found civilization outside planet earth.
If we only found some civilization inside planet earth too.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday September 14 2017, @08:07AM
Grammar errors in the above post are caused by vodka chili cocktail.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday September 14 2017, @02:44PM
The Subterraneans are biding their time.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 14 2017, @03:10PM
Well, I was looking for a place to comment, and you provided it.
I always use ground ice. The kids like their ice cubes (sorta rounded cubes, actually, only the top surface looks kinda like a cube) whole. We always switch that little do-diddy back and forth. I'm going to like Vesta!!
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Thursday September 14 2017, @09:53AM
I note that the evidence presented is consistent with any fluid containing hydrogen, for example liquid hydrocarbons. Specifically:
* It is flat
* It contains hydrogen
* It can make geomorphological features characteristic of fluid flows.
I didn't find the paper on "geomorphological features" but I don't see how fluid flow can be possible in low pressure/gravity environment i.e. any fluid would boil off and become lost. Or is it not quite that "low gravity".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @04:23PM
I've heard that space is pretty cold. Does it have to be water? Other "liquids" freeze into solids similar to water.