To quote the Lander: "Are you ready to celebrate? Well, get ready: We have ICE!!!!! Yes, ICE, *WATER ICE* on Mars! w00t!!! Best day ever!!" More here.
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John M. Lynch is an Honors Faculty Fellow at Barrett the Honors College at Arizona State University. He's also affiliated with ASU's Center for Biology & Society. When he's not an historian of anti-evolutionism, he's an evolutionary morphologist. Much to his surprise, in 2007 he was named the Arizona Professor of the Year. No doubt his students were surprised as well.
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Ice on Mars
Category: Earth and Planetary Sciences
Posted on: June 19, 2008 10:17 PM, by John Lynch
Find more posts in: 
Physical Science
Physical ScienceTrackBacks
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://scienceblogs.com/mt/pings/74494
Comments
Looks like Dan Quayle was right.
Posted by: Colugo | June 19, 2008 10:47 PM
time to pull out the snoopy snow cone machine. slushies for everyone!
Posted by: megan | June 19, 2008 11:44 PM
Nice!!!
Posted by: Mike P | June 20, 2008 12:28 AM
It's out of this world! And so very nice,
In the barrens of Mars, to have dug up some ice!
My prediction today? That intrepid explorers
Will soon find the signs of some Naked Ice Borers!
http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com/2008/06/but-no-sign-of-aliens.html
Posted by: Cuttlefish | June 20, 2008 1:39 AM
Can they rule out solid CO2 (Dry Ice)? I haven't seen this possibility mentioned anywhere, and unless/until they do the claim of solid evidence for water ice is still a bit fluid, IMO. Might there be a big underground "carbonifier" of solid CO2 that keeps the soil temperature low? There's something hard down there. What is it?
Posted by: S. C. Hartman | June 20, 2008 6:50 AM
Hartman: "...the claim of solid evidence for water ice is still a bit fluid..."
Beautifully phrased! Made my day.
Posted by: Ian | June 20, 2008 8:40 AM
It totally made my day to see that come across my Twitter feed. Love it when machines say "w00t" :)
Posted by: ehoffman | June 20, 2008 1:36 PM
Hartman, from the comments on the linked page:
Re: Dry Ice (CO2 ice) vs Water Ice
In the Martian summer it is much too hot for dry ice to be solid. There is abundant dry ice (frozen CO2)on Mars in the winter. The melting point of dry ice on Mars is -193 F. Today's weather report from the Canadian weather station on Phoenix shows a low of -112 F -- way too hot for dry ice to stay solid right now
Posted by: Magpie | June 20, 2008 2:33 PM
Magpie:
Solid CO2 does not melt to a liquid phase except at high pressure: it sublimates directly to the gas phase. CO2 freezes at -78 C (-108 F), cf. -112 F (-80 C) you cite for the local temp up there (where did the m.p. of -193 F "on Mars" come from? That's not possible.). The phase transition temp is probably somewhat lower than -78 C at the partial pressure for CO2 in Martian atmosphere, but anyway, it seems to me that solid CO2 could exist below the surface especially if covered by a layer of insulating dust. I look forward to chemical identification of what these evanescent chunks are.
Posted by: S. C. Hartman | June 20, 2008 3:53 PM
the melting point you mention is at 1 atm (earth atmospheric pressure - Mars is much lower, so it is in a different part of the phase diagram.
Posted by: paul orwin | June 20, 2008 6:23 PM
Check the phase diagram here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Carbon_dioxide_pressure-temperature_phase_diagram.jpg
Liquid CO2 does not exist below about 5 bar ppCO2, either on Mars or on Earth. The ppCO2 on Mars is only about 0.3 bar, so the liquid phase cannot exist at any temperature: only gas and solid. The transition temp at that pressure is about 190 K, or -83 C (-118 F).
Posted by: S. C. Hartman | June 20, 2008 6:47 PM