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Surprising Further Evidence for a Wet Mars
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon May 21, 2007 06:25 PM
from the slippery-when-wet dept.
from the slippery-when-wet dept.
Riding with Robots writes "When the robotic geologist Spirit found the latest evidence for a wet Mars, 'You could hear people gasp in astonishment,' said Steve Squyres, the lead scientist for the Mars rovers. 'This is a remarkable discovery. And the fact that we found something this new and different after nearly 1,200 days on Mars makes it even more remarkable. It makes you wonder what else is still out there.' The latest discovery, announced today, adds compelling new evidence for ancient conditions that might have been favorable for life, according to the rover team."
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"Puddles" of Water Sighted on Mars 237 comments
eldavojohn writes "Further reinforcing the theory of a wet Mars, NewScientist is reporting on what appear to be water puddles in newly taken images from the Mars rover. While these results are controversial, the assumption that these blue 'puddles' are water still has to be tested by engineers. They'll try to measure the uniform smoothness of the puddle surfaces. Analysis will also examine their apparent 'opaqueness', where in some areas observers claim to see pebbles underneath the surface of the blue areas. From the article: 'No signs of liquid water have been observed directly from cameras on the surface before. Reports last year pointed to the existence of gullies on crater walls where water appears to have flowed in the last few years, as shown in images taken from orbit, but those are short-lived flows, which are thought to have frozen over almost immediately.'"
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Looks like ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Looks like ... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Looks like ... (Score:5, Interesting)
From the article....the dead 6th wheel's new mission is as a plow of sorts.....
"One of Spirit's six wheels no longer rotates, so it leaves a deep track as it drags through soil. That churning has exposed several patches of bright soil, leading to some of Spirit's biggest discoveries at Gusev, including this recent discovery. "
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Re:Looks like ... (Score:5, Informative)
While this does appear to be an interplanetary bug-as-a-feature, the rovers' wheels were actually designed to be able to scrape off the top layer of soil and expose what's underneath.
Obviously, not to the degree this disabled wheel has, but still, they very much had plans to scratch below the surface of Mars.
- RG>
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Ok great... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Ok great... (Score:5, Informative)
Ice on the poles, a given. Easy. There are even some moons who're thought to have it. This, though, means that there was water there, liquid water, in larger quantities, far from the poles. And this water could have been the engine for life. Long, long time ago, granted, but still.
It's not that there was water, it's where they found it.
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There's no crying in baseball! (Score:5, Interesting)
No offense to Gertrude Weise, but -- huh?
Re:There's no crying in baseball! (Score:4, Funny)
- "[...] Spirit backed up over Gertrude Weise [...]"
- "Spirit acquired full color 13-filter images of Gertrude Weise [...]"
It's not clear whether Spirit took the pictures before or after backing over Gertrude Weise--if it was after, it may have been done for insurance purposes...By the way, in reading the article, I notice that Spirit is near something that NASA is calling "Home Plate." So I assume that's what the baseball references are. There's also a "Virginia Bell" [baseballhistorian.com] (not be confused, I assume, with this Virginia Bell [javasbachelorpad.com]), "Kathryn Beare" [baseball-reference.com], and "Janice O'Hara" [baseball-reference.com].
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Still more evidence... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
After we dusted the surface with the first few manned missions where insertion didn't quite work as planned (like many of the robotic missions have done), then perhaps. Just start with the cost of the rovers and start multiplying by tens, lots of tens. I doubt your "science" advancements as well. I think we would be looking at golf balls being hit off the Valles Marineris, numerous flag-postings, and speak-with-a-scient
Re:Still more evidence... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully the costs of manned space flight are coming down. alt.space is that crusade. Then all these heady justifications for why we need to spend so much tax payer money will go away too. If we're lucky, NASA's role in manned space flight will be completely transformed and science will finally be recognised as the secondary motivation that it always been.
The purpose of manned space flight is not science. It's not spin-offs. It's not pork projects. It's not "national pride". It's not communications. It's not even about the limits to growth on our tiny planet.
All that stuff is just reasons we make up to keep the population paying for it. We need these justifications to explain why someone who barely has enough money to make rent should be paying for a space station.
The purpose of manned space flight is human unity. It's the global selfless dedication to a goal greater than all of humanity. It's what we learn science and build surplus economies to achieve. It's the purpose of being alive now. We need to get off this rock right now. We need to be more than just one planet. We need this so that we can look up at night and know there are people up there. Not just a scientist or two.. but an entire civilization.
Parent
Martian walks into a bar (Score:3, Funny)
Bartender said, "We're a bar, we just serve alcoholic drinks."
Martian said "Well, since I'm not an alchohol-based life form, could I just have a glass of water instead?"
And that, friends, is why Mars is Dry.
Let's hope we don't find actual life there (Score:5, Interesting)
The theory in a nutshell: There are a handful of steps life must go through, to the best of our knowledge, before a rotating disk of star dust can bear intelligent life that colonizes space and thus ensures its survival. The reason why we don't see life everywhere around us is that one of these steps is so improbable or difficult that only very few, if any, aspiring colonizers of space make it past that crucial step and go extinct. The question is, are we, homo sapiens, already beyond this step? If we never find alien life, chances are we have passed this point. For every life form we do discover, the probability that we yet have to reach this point increases.
Re:Gee, what a consolation prize (Score:5, Interesting)
If we do survive and thrive, diversity will be the least of our problems.
The old "loneliness of the stars" bit is as out of date as, well, Star Trek, as out of date as the idea that "crossing the stars" will be done in tin cans carefully coddling our meat sacks. That may have made sense to 1950s science, but it's obvious nonsense to anyone who uses 21st century science. It's going to be way stranger than Star Trek. You will pine for the days when it was as simple as Star Trek.
Parent
Finding new things is surprising? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why so surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sand? (Score:5, Informative)
Silica [wikipedia.org] or Silicon dioxide, is the most common constituent of sand in inland continental settings and non-tropical coastal settings is silica, usually in the form of quartz because the considerable hardness of this mineral resists erosion. However, the composition of sand varies according to local rock sources and conditions.
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Re:Sand? (Score:4, Funny)
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Solvents (Score:5, Interesting)
TFA concludes that water had to be present as a solvent. I'm sceptical.
Silica is a polar molecule ( tetraheral: two oxygen atoms and two unlinked electron pairs equally spaced around a silion atom ). It ought to dissolve in any polar solvent, such as ammonia. And ammonia was almost certainly present during the formation of mars.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Solvents (Score:5, Informative)
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You think that's bad (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Solvents (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Sand? (Score:5, Funny)
I hope not, women are from Venus.
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