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so this is going to be a big shift from

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the previous talks I don't have any

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pretty pictures of exoplanets or

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meteorites I have black text on a white

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background so prepare to be bored I'm

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going to talk about some of the work I'm

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doing right now and this is still

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incomplete but sort of precursor to what

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we're doing and how this plays into the

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greater astrobiology astrobiology

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community and what we're trying to do is

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build an environmental chamber that can

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simulate the temperature pressure and

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humidity of Mars and conduct laboratory

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experiments to see under what conditions

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Brian's form particularly brines with

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salts like sodium magnesium or calcium

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for Khloe so these are salts that we

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know exists from the Phoenix lander and

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salts that you know with data from MSL

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to seem to be ubiquitous on Mars so

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reinterpretation of the Viking Lander

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results also indicates that there's a

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very good chance these four claw results

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being sort of everywhere on Mars or many

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places on Mars and we want to see you

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know are these salts something that are

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able to form solutions how do those

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solutions move in the soil and you know

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if there's a chance for present-day have

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an ability or current water cycle on

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Mars what does that look like and so

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we're doing this with actual laboratory

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experiments here on earth and trying to

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extrapolate that out both you know the

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chemistry side and the astrobiology side

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so the background here is we really

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started with Phoenix lander in the 2008

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Phoenix touchdown in the area this the

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Martian polar region where it's not the

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ice caps so not quite Antarctica but you

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know more like the Alaska or northern

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Canadian tundra so this is an area where

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we know there was a lot of subsurface

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hydrogen and when it landed down we blew

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off these big areas here where we found

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lots and lots of ice we scoop scoop down

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into the soil we see ice there's ice

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everywhere so lots and lots of ice water

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ice very good we also have the white

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chemistry lab in Phoenix we know that

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their perchlorate salts most likely

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sodium and magnesium and also quite

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possibly calcium for Chloe based on

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reanalysis of about chemistry results

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and results we have from NFL

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and we also see the formation of some

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spheroids on one of the lander struts

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and so it was thought that maybe that

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these spheroids could be a result of

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Dell questions the absorption of

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atmospheric water vapor onto these salts

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to form the spheroid this sort of wet

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spot on the lander struck and so one of

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the things that we're doing again is

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these looking at phase diagrams as we

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sort of have a generic salt here and go

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from a hundred percent salt on the right

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to 100 cell water on the left and so

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this is a solution where you have a

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solid salt and a salt solution so sort

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of liquid plus solid salt salt has

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precipitated out on the right you have

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salt solution so it's all liquid in this

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part and then i screw sub heading out

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and so what you have is essentially many

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conditions where you'll have some amount

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of liquid solution and then up down to

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the detective temperature so you'll

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essentially have a the salt tipped it

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out if you're on the right side of this

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diagram or the ice precipitate out if

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you're on the left side and so you'll

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have some liquid solution of water and

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insult until you see Technic and then

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you just have salads all and ice as you

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reduce the temperature and so we have

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very hygroscopic salts that we found

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with Phoenix these for Floyd's and what

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we see is a huge freezing point

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depression with these salts so this is

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some work from golf and severe a few

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others fairly new work with sodium for

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quote on the left magnesium chloride on

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the right again consistent with the

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Phoenix results and we see that what

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we're what we're doing here is

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essentially starting with assault

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exposed that the Martian atmosphere at

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similar to Mars temperatures so it goes

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down to around negative 50 see here so

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we'd like to go a lot colder and that's

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one of the things that we're trying to

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do with our experiments and we're

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ramping up the relative humidity in this

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simulated Martian air and so as we go

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from completely dry air to a completely

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wet air we're moving across in this

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phase diagram until we get a point where

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there's Dolph questions so

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the deliquescent point in this case

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depends on the hydration state of the

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initial assault and for the anhydrous

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phase you have bail questions early as

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this sort of metastable point where we

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have these yellow lines and you have

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once it's dela plus it's going to stay

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in that solution for a longer period of

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time so but yeah the I'm murdering this

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the anhydrous phase del classes early

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earlier than we would expect it just

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based on the the solution phase diagrams

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and then the monohydrate also dealt us

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it's a bit early and so this is sort of

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extending the range in which we expect

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liquid solutions to exist on Mars and so

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once you delve plus the other thing

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about these salts is you have the

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connecticut condition where once you

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delve plus it's harder for the salt to

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refreeze or to evaporate and so we don't

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actually have a fluorescence the point

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where the salt dries out until you drop

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down too much lower relative humidities

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and so what we see here is a applaud

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these red lines are some simulation of

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the Viking one lander site and you'd see

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that with these salts presence there

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there's a very good chance that during

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certain points of the day you would have

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liquid solutions form on Mars if you

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consider calcium for Cloyd as well these

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are new results not yet published in a

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paper but from knitting and golf as well

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calcium McCoy is pretty much going to be

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liquid if it's exposed to the air on

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Mars you know in many places so this is

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going to be it's extremely hygroscopic

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salt and it's going to want form a

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liquid solution so again these need to

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be probed more carefully you see again

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we're stuck about negative 50 here and

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if we're talking about eutectic

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temperature is on the order of 200 or

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maybe 170 Kelvin we really need to take

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these experiments further and that's

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what we're trying to do with our chamber

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so again we don't quite know these based

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on the models alone especially models

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with aqua solutions and so we're trying

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to oh sorry one more we're trying to do

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that experimentally this is an example

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of why you would care about

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natural biology community obviously we

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need liquid water for life and this is

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from Jones and lien waiver and Clark and

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we have plotted here the pressure on the

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left hand side and temperature on the

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horizontal axis and this is essentially

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the phase space of Mars and then on on

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top of that the Samaras being the brown

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area we have the phase space of liquid

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water and the phase space of life as we

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know it on earth and sort of extrapolate

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it out and so this is trying to help us

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identify regions on Mars where you can

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start to discuss present-day

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habitability or where life might still

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exist so we're life did exist and so

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that's what we're trying to do and the

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grand scheme of things so this is what

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our chamber looks like now sort of the

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cartoon version vacuum chamber with a

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thermal plate single thermal plate

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inside a sample holder the thermal play

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is 24 inches by 24 inches so we can have

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quite large samples it's a very large

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vacuum chamber which you know

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essentially I can fit in it we go to

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Martian pressures we have a simulated

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Martian atmosphere temperatures we can

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go down to negative 196 Celsius

193
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essentially the the boiling point of

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liquid nitrogen that's our primary

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coolant and then we add water vapor into

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the system using a bubbler condenser

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system and we're trying to sort of fine

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tune this and calibrate it now but the

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00:08:19,149 --> 00:08:17,389
temperature and pressure are very good

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still a little more work to do with the

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humidity but we're getting to the point

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where we can start you do to do

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00:08:27,730 --> 00:08:25,729
experiments with this and so a picture

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of it actually in the lab again pretty

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big you know you could crawl inside has

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a space feet if you want the the range

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we've designed this specifically for

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Mars but you can also extrapolate to

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tighten and if you wanted to do studies

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of the moons of Saturn or Jupiter

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something like that and we have Raman

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spectrometer inside to measure

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deliquescent but we have a number of

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view ports available to also look at

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other to enable other instruments as

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00:09:03,040 --> 00:09:00,200
well so and then just

217
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some nice shiny pictures so the cooling

218
00:09:07,870 --> 00:09:05,690
system all PID controlled we're running

219
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a negative 150 Celsius at this point the

220
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thermal play inside and then just

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looking down from above at a very small

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sample holder you know about that big so

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what we're planning to do is again these

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improve these phase diagrams

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00:09:26,500 --> 00:09:24,980
experimentally determine I not only if

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the assault will deliquesce on Mars I

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think that's been answered that these

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salts will deliquesce but how much time

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are they going to form you know for how

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long will they form liquid solutions and

231
00:09:40,900 --> 00:09:37,880
how much times they need and how much

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time does you know your extreme a file

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or any Martian life that may exist need

234
00:10:05,230 --> 00:09:48,250
to survive in this environment and so

235
00:10:07,120 --> 00:10:05,240
with that thank in open up questions I'm

236
00:10:09,160 --> 00:10:07,130
pretty curious with those perchlorates

237
00:10:10,660 --> 00:10:09,170
has anybody done kind of like the

238
00:10:12,190 --> 00:10:10,670
half-life of the reactivity of

239
00:10:13,750 --> 00:10:12,200
perchlorate versus how long you can

240
00:10:15,190 --> 00:10:13,760
actually keep that liquid solution I

241
00:10:16,960 --> 00:10:15,200
mean perchlorates pretty wrecked of

242
00:10:18,970 --> 00:10:16,970
stuff and if you have even basalts or

243
00:10:22,120 --> 00:10:18,980
anything like that I would assume it's

244
00:10:25,960 --> 00:10:22,130
going to react pretty quickly in terms

245
00:10:27,820 --> 00:10:25,970
of I don't know that much with the

246
00:10:30,700 --> 00:10:27,830
reaction rates but I think that it's

247
00:10:32,890 --> 00:10:30,710
actually quite stable so in the in a

248
00:10:34,240 --> 00:10:32,900
salt form especially so once you have

249
00:10:36,580 --> 00:10:34,250
piccata saves around for a long time

250
00:10:38,500 --> 00:10:36,590
actually on earth a lot of the it's

251
00:10:41,920 --> 00:10:38,510
mostly microbial breakdown that destroys

252
00:10:44,740 --> 00:10:41,930
Purefoy so the reason you see it build

253
00:10:46,360 --> 00:10:44,750
up on Mars is because you have you might

254
00:10:48,250 --> 00:10:46,370
have some source process and there's not

255
00:10:49,600 --> 00:10:48,260
really anything to theirs it's so dry

256
00:10:51,160 --> 00:10:49,610
that the water is not washing it away

257
00:10:52,570 --> 00:10:51,170
which is what would happen in the

258
00:10:54,250 --> 00:10:52,580
Earth's system you know you only find

259
00:10:56,260 --> 00:10:54,260
perchlorates in very dry areas like

260
00:11:05,940 --> 00:10:56,270
southwestern united states that it kind

261
00:11:09,580 --> 00:11:08,260
what effect do you think depth has on

262
00:11:11,650 --> 00:11:09,590
this or are they going to just

263
00:11:13,360 --> 00:11:11,660
deliquesce at the surface so you said

264
00:11:15,130 --> 00:11:13,370
like if you have perchlorate on the

265
00:11:17,290 --> 00:11:15,140
surface you're going to make a liquid

266
00:11:18,610 --> 00:11:17,300
solution but presumably for habitability

267
00:11:20,650 --> 00:11:18,620
purposes you would want it to be a

268
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little bit deeper down into soil where

269
00:11:24,310 --> 00:11:22,400
it's a nice little habitat so with a

270
00:11:25,870 --> 00:11:24,320
deliquesce if they're frozen up in a

271
00:11:27,790 --> 00:11:25,880
permafrost or something like that yeah

272
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so the reason why the chamber is so big

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is because we want to look at you know

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essentially the soil soil depths and we

275
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want to see how perchlorate would move

276
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around in the soil we don't see poor koi

277
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immediately on the surface especially at

278
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the phoenix landing site you have to dig

279
00:11:42,070 --> 00:11:40,430
a little bit once you dig you find lots

280
00:11:43,330 --> 00:11:42,080
of pockets of it so that's one of the

281
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things that we really want to understand

282
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is how is / clarity being transported

283
00:11:49,330 --> 00:11:47,360
through the surface from the surface to

284
00:11:53,740 --> 00:11:49,340
these pockets and pore spaces in the

285
00:11:56,380 --> 00:11:53,750
soil but from what I've seen I think it

286
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will actually you know that's the thing

287
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like if you have calcium for Chloe open

288
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to the air it's going to della place on

289
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Mars and it's going to form a liquid and

290
00:12:04,450 --> 00:12:02,690
it's going to sink down into the soil

291
00:12:06,460 --> 00:12:04,460
and then it's going to be maybe less

292
00:12:08,680 --> 00:12:06,470
likely to form a liquid it's going to be

293
00:12:10,180 --> 00:12:08,690
it'll maybe stay liquid longer because

294
00:12:12,880 --> 00:12:10,190
the soil will help hold on the moisture

295
00:12:14,980 --> 00:12:12,890
so that's what we want to know is how

296
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you know not just how these salts you

297
00:12:18,370 --> 00:12:16,730
know the first stage is the salt in the

298
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atmosphere but the second stage is

299
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really how does the soil interact with