{"id":19162,"date":"2016-11-29T00:37:47","date_gmt":"2016-11-28T16:37:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/how-to-get-water-on-mars-uw-researchers-are-working-on-a-way-to-cook-it-out-of-soil\/"},"modified":"2016-11-29T00:37:47","modified_gmt":"2016-11-28T16:37:47","slug":"how-to-get-water-on-mars-uw-researchers-are-working-on-a-way-to-cook-it-out-of-soil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/how-to-get-water-on-mars-uw-researchers-are-working-on-a-way-to-cook-it-out-of-soil\/","title":{"rendered":"How to get water on Mars? UW researchers are working on a way to cook it out of soil"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_292430\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-292430\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-292430\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/161128-utopia-planitia-mars-630x392.jpg\" alt=\"Utopia Planitia on Mars\" width=\"630\" height=\"392\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/161128-utopia-planitia-mars-630x392.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/161128-utopia-planitia-mars-768x477.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/161128-utopia-planitia-mars-1240x771.jpg 1240w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/161128-utopia-planitia-mars.jpg 1647w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-292430\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This vertically exaggerated view shows scalloped depressions in a part of Mars where such textures prompted researchers to check for buried ice, using ground-penetrating radar. They found about as much frozen water as the volume of Lake Superior. (NASA \/ JPL-Caltech \/ Univ. of Arizona Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Scientists say there\u2019s&nbsp;enough water in just one region of Mars to fill up Lake Superior&nbsp;\u2013 if only it could be extracted from subsurface ice.<\/p>\n<p>So how can future Red Planet settlers take advantage of those deposits to produce the drinkable water, breathable oxygen and hydrogen-based rocket&nbsp;fuel they\u2019ll need? Researchers at the University of Washington are working on a way.<\/p>\n<p>Their research builds upon a technology that was pioneered almost two decades ago, known as the water vapor adsorption reactor, or WAVAR. Adam Bruckner, a professor in UW\u2019s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, worked with students to develop a device that could extract tiny amounts of water vapor from the Martian atmosphere.<\/p>\n<p>The WAVAR device was successfully tested in Mars-type conditions, but there wasn\u2019t any funding to move the technology beyond proof of concept.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNASA has not really funded in-situ resource utilization for research work on that at all,\u201d Bruckner told GeekWire. WAVAR does make a cameo, however, in the fictional tale of Red Planet settlement depicted in \u201cMars,\u201d a miniseries airing on National Geographic Channel.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Extracting Water on Mars | MARS: How to Survive on Mars\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7M9_p7FooE8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Bruckner has taken the concept in a different direction. Instead of trying to draw trickles&nbsp;of water out of Mars\u2019 air, he\u2019s looking into using microwaves to cook water out of Mars\u2019 soil.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a natural WAVAR,\u201d Bruckner said.<\/p>\n<p>The process could be workable for places like Utopia Planitia, where researchers say&nbsp;a lake\u2019s worth of water lies frozen in the soil across an area wider than the state of New Mexico.<\/p>\n<p>Their estimate is based on readings from a ground-penetrating radar instrument on NASA\u2019s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The radar data point to a deposit that ranges in thickness from 260 to 560 feet,&nbsp;beneath a layer of soil that\u2019s 3 to 33 feet thick.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis deposit probably formed as snowfall accumulating into an ice sheet mixed with dust, during a period in Mars history when the planet\u2019s axis was more tilted than it is today,\u201d Cassie Stuurman, a researcher at the University of Texas in Austin, said in a NASA news release. Stuurman&nbsp;is the lead author of a report on the find in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_292431\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-292431\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-292431\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/161128-mars-map-630x323.jpg\" alt=\"Map of water in Utopia Planitia\" width=\"630\" height=\"323\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-292431\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Diagonal striping on this map of a portion of Mars\u2019 Utopia Planitia region indicates the area where a large subsurface deposit rich in water ice was assessed using the Shallow Radar (SHARAD) instrument on NASA\u2019s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. (NASA \/ JPL-Caltech \/ Univ. of Rome \/ ASI \/ PSI Graphic)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The deposit isn\u2019t made of pure, clear ice. Rather, it\u2019s thought to be about 50 to 85 percent water ice, mixed in with dust or rocks.<\/p>\n<p>Conditions on Mars are such that if you just dug up the deposit, the exposed water ice would turn directly into water vapor. But Bruckner\u2019s concept calls for placing a dome over the soil, injecting microwaves to heat up the soil particles, liberating the water and capturing the moisture.<\/p>\n<p>Bruckner and his colleagues at UW aren\u2019t the only ones taking this tack. Other&nbsp;ventures, including Alabama-based Space Resources Extraction Technology, have been&nbsp;working on similar methods to cook the water out of&nbsp;icy soil on Mars or the moon. NASA is even planning to send an oxygen-extraction experiment called MOXIE to Mars in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>For more than a decade, \u201cfollowing the water\u201d has been NASA\u2019s mantra for Mars exploration. The University of Texas\u2019 Joe Levy, a co-author of the study in Geophysical Research Letters, hopes that all that frozen water&nbsp;will play a role in building Mars\u2019 future as well as understanding its past.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe ice deposits in Utopia Planitia aren\u2019t just an exploration resource,\u201d Levy said. \u201cThey\u2019re also one of the most accessible climate change records on Mars. We don\u2019t understand fully why ice has built up in some areas of the Martian surface and not in others. Sampling and using this ice with a future mission could help keep astronauts alive, while also helping them unlock the secrets of Martian ice ages.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>The six-episode \u201cMars\u201d miniseries&nbsp;airs on Mondays on the National Geographic Channel. Check local listings for times. More than a dozen featurettes, including a half-hour prequel titled \u201cBefore Mars,\u201d are available for viewing via the website and&nbsp;National Geographic\u2019s YouTube channel.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This vertically exaggerated view shows scalloped depressions in a part of Mars where such textures prompted researchers to check for buried ice, using ground-penetrating radar. They found about as much frozen water as the volume of Lake Superior. (NASA \/ JPL-Caltech \/ Univ. of Arizona Photo) Scientists say there\u2019s&nbsp;enough water in just one region of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[367,5128,4368],"class_list":["post-19162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-mars","tag-mars-miniseries","tag-university-of-washington"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19162"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19162\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}