Scoop up some soil on Mars, heat it up, cool down the steam and … slurp, slurp! You’ve got water! Mars might appear dry as a desert, but astronauts may someday be able to tap its soil to quench their thirst. Research recently published suggests that the soil from the Martian surface contains about 2% water by weight. This is one of several insights emerging from data that the Mars rover Curiosity has been collecting. Five studies in the journal Science were published last week based on data from the rover’s first 100 days on the Red Planet. “The community was surprised that there was a large amount of water trapped in the … Martian soil,” said Chris Webster, manager of NASA’s Planetary Sciences Instruments Office. Curiosity, representing a $2.5 billion NASA mission, has been on Mars since it made a dramatic landing there August 6, 2012. Earthlings celebrated as the two-ton rover arrived, carrying with it the most sophisticated suite of instruments and cameras to explore the surface of another planet. Thanks to Curiosity, scientists now know more than ever about the composition of the Martian soil. “It’s the first time that the soil has been analyzed at this level of accuracy,” Webster said. Read more: http://fox5sandiego.com/2013/10/01/water-discovered-in-martian-soil/#ixzz2gVD3kq5B
