"Definitive Evidence" For Ancient Lake On Mars

TheSync writes "Eurekalert reports on 'definitive evidence' for an ancient water lake on Mars. A UC Boulder research team has discovered evidence of a shoreline on Mars of a 3 billion year-old lake 80 square miles in area and 1,500 feet deep (roughly the equivalent of Lake Champlain). Images came from the HiRISE instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Water carved a 30-mile-long canyon that opened up into a valley and forming a large delta during a time when Mars is generally believed to have been cold and dry. The lack of additional, lower shorelines, shows that the lake dried up very quickly. Of particular interest are the deltas adjacent to the lake. On Earth, deltas rapidly bury organic carbon and other biomarkers of life, making the Martian lake bed and delta a prime target for future searches for past life on the planet."

Re:Definite Evidence

[MadLad]

Definitive (adj.): supplying or being a final or conclusive settlement.

Which proves beyond doubt that of which it is evidential.

As opposed to ye olde ordinarey evidence which merely contributes to the probability that something is likely.

Re:Definite Evidence

[davidangel]

Um, why not just call it "PROOF" then?

evidence of lake != lake of water

[Anonymous Coward]

So where is the evidence that the lake was made of water? could be any liquid really... epic fail

Re:Definite Evidence

[Mistshadow2k4]

Because "proof" doesn't sound as self-important as "definitive evidence", silly! Don't you know that scientists need to use longer words and phrases than the rest of us to be taken seriously?

Re:If it's definitive evidence...

[Robin47]

Because it's 'alleged' definitive evidence?

Re:Definite Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm? Proof is stronger than definitive evidence. I doubt any scientist would say proof without a real sample of water. Scientists like to use hedge words, because they are accurate and because you know you're always partly wrong.

Re:If it's definitive evidence...

[Bakkster]

Because it's a direct quote "from the article".

Re:It is CU Boulder not UC Boulder

[2short]

"It's called Colorado University, not the University of Colorado, so it would be kind of dumb to flip the acronym. "

Almost as dumb as correcting people about things you have no knowledge of and are, as it happens, wrong about. The University of Colorado goes by CU. Colorado State University goes by CSU. "Colorado University" doesn't go by anything, because it only exists in your head.

Funny; at this point, I would rather NOT find life

[WindBourne]

there. The reason is because Mars CAN be terriformed by plummitting a a few ammonia based asteroids from further out as well as a couple of ice based asteroids. It obviously would not occur overnight, but, once vasmir occurs, I would not be surprised to see us sending exploratory missions to locate resources on these asteroids. BUT, once life is discovered there, the west will not proceed with that (though I suspect more than a few other countries would push for it regardless of the life).

Re:NASA has been hiding life on Mars for years

[geekoid]

Ignoring the large glaring errors, let's look at the practicality of the situation:
If NASA had proof of intellegent life on MArs, they would get a blank check to get there.
I is in NASAs best interest to NOT have a cover-up.
It's also in the governments best interest not to ahve a cover up.