Rover Finds Ancient Streambed On Martian Surface 180
sighted writes "NASA reports that its Curiosity rover mission has found evidence that a stream once ran vigorously — and for a sustained amount of time — across the area on Mars where the rover is driving. There is, of course, earlier evidence for the presence of water on Mars, but NASA says this evidence, images of rocks containing ancient streambed gravels, is the first of its kind."
Water, or some other fluid? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Water, or some other fluid? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Water, or some other fluid? (Score:5, Insightful)
What else would it be besides water? Liquid Hydrogen?
Considering the place were Mars occupies in our Solar System, I don't see how it could be anything other than water.
Re:Water, or some other fluid? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Water, or some other fluid? (Score:5, Informative)
Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe and Oxygen is the third most abundant element in the universe. The only thing splitting them is Helium which is inert. All other things being equal the likelihood that a particular liquid at 'reasonable temperatures' is water is orders of magnitude more likely to be water than mercury or bromine.
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Physiologically, is iron a problem for us? Non-elemental phosphorus? Most sulphur compounds (in an oxygenic environemnt, where they oxidise to sulphites / suplhates)?
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Re:Water, or some other fluid? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're doing it wrong.
Try looking at the closeup image. You know, the one that shows the nice, rounded stones. Just like the ones you'd find in a stream bed.
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No, those flat rounded stones are the ones the Titanians tossed to watch them skip off of Titan lakes [wikipedia.org] and on into space, toward Mars because of low gravity. Right diagnosis, wrong planet (or moon).
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A continuous, amorphous substance whose molecules move freely past one another and that has the tendency to assume the shape of its container; a liquid or gas.
If the stream bed is a billion years old and has carbon dioxide repeatedly flood it, it may well have well-worked stones like what are seen. Yes, I do think that the idea is something of a stretch, but it needs to be ruled out.
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Does that rule CO2 out as a possible fluid for you?
Re:Water, or some other fluid? (Score:4, Insightful)
What different position makes something other than water plausible? liquid forms of things we think of as "gasses" require it to be way out there, liquid forms of what we think of as "solids" require it to be way in there. There's a fairly small set of things liquid within the range of reasonable temperatures, and the obvious non-water choices are far more chemically complex.
Granted, our understanding of mechanics of evolving planetary systems is rudimentary, theoretical, and subject to massive revision over the next decade as we observe more exoplanets, but Mars migrating that far while keeping its surface intact doesn't seem likely at present; while we should remain open to that possibility, Occam's razor says assume it's water.
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I'm sure I have always misunderstood this, but why does the fact that an explanation is the simplest of the ones available mean it is likely to be correct?
It doesn't.
It does mean the simpler explanation should be preferred in the absence of any method of distinguishing, or absent any extra explanatory power by the more complicated explanation.
In this case, water explains the composition of these rocks perfectly well. Other explanations could at best hope to explain such sediments as well as water, but would also create many more mysteries. We could conceivably find evidence of a non-water liquid carrier but in the absence of such water just makes more sense
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This really is incredible. It's traveled less than 200 meters and found things worth studying. Once it gets to Glenleg things are going to get really inte
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Most likely the JD kind, though possibly one of the many "Hoot Mon!" brands [luxurylaunches.com].
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If you read around the original articles, they saw outcrops of these cemented conglomerates which had been scoured clear of dust and fine material by the blast of the SkyCrane's jets. While they were doing their pre-drive instrument check-outs.
And they kept their communal traps shut until they'd found good enough evidence.
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Dear dork:
Do you actually know the meaning of the word "galaxy"?
Do you also say that you've traveled to another continent when you go to the corner store?
mark
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Mars is Ginger isn't it?
(full disclosure: I'm Scottish, and not ginger)
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also, the secret ingredient in Irn Bru is Martian soil.
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Maybe there was rain from galactic center....
mark
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Let's try that again http //news.softpedia.com/news/Sagittarius-B-Contains-a-Billion-Billion-Billion-Liters-of-Alcohol-80786.shtml (Note the space replacing the colon after http)
Re:Water, or some other fluid? (Score:5, Insightful)
it wasn't a liquid form of the atmosphere, carbon dioxide goes to solid. wasn't the 3% nitrogen, too warm. certainly not the argon, also too warm. maybe the NASA boffins know a bit more than you?
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Considering that the atmospheric pressure on Mars is a lot closer to 100 milibars (1/10 of an "atmosphere") than to that of 10 [Earth] atmospheres, I think the GP's point stands. True, under certain conditions CO2 has a liquid state, but the liquid nitrogen is a far more likely explanation.
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There are other fluids than water that can sustain a semicolloidal solution or carry sediments. I assume that scientists now have to figure out what fluid flowed, rather than simply assuming that it had to be water.
Zap it with a laser and conduct at spectrum analysis on it and see what elements pop up.
Re:Water, or some other fluid? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are other fluids than water that can sustain a semicolloidal solution or carry sediments. I assume that scientists now have to figure out what fluid flowed, rather than simply assuming that it had to be water.
Zap it with a laser and conduct at spectrum analysis on it and see what elements pop up.
Without proclaiming any expertise, I'd say that the erosion and eddy patterns left behind would be informative, since they would be indicative of the viscosity of the liquid. The pattern of sediment would drop hints towards its density. Water, CO2 and other highly-vaporous substances would not leave much, if any discernible residue or precipitate compared many other fluids. Some fluids would react with certain payload elements, other with different payload elements (in the structural meaning of the term "element", not the chemical one).
There's a lot you can learn just ogling the pictures.
THEN zap it with a laser!
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There are other fluids than water that can sustain a semicolloidal solution or carry sediments. I assume that scientists now have to figure out what fluid flowed, rather than simply assuming that it had to be water.
Zap it with a laser and conduct at spectrum analysis on it and see what elements pop up.
Without proclaiming any expertise, I'd say that the erosion and eddy patterns left behind would be informative, since they would be indicative of the viscosity of the liquid. The pattern of sediment would drop hints towards its density. Water, CO2 and other highly-vaporous substances would not leave much, if any discernible residue or precipitate compared many other fluids. Some fluids would react with certain payload elements, other with different payload elements (in the structural meaning of the term "element", not the chemical one).
There's a lot you can learn just ogling the pictures.
THEN zap it with a laser!
Routinely you will find H20 bonded in some sediments where water has passed for a length of time, sans life, there will be less (to none) of the familiar compounds of Earth. It likely was water, but when and how much is certainly an interest, though it likely boiled off into space, thanks to Mars' weak gravity.
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THEN zap it with a laser!
They didn't, they moved right along. This is one of the more interesting things I took from the NASA site.
"A long-flowing stream can be a habitable environment," said Grotzinger. "It is not our top choice as an environment for preservation of organics, though. We're still going to Mount Sharp, but this is insurance that we have already found our first potentially habitable environment."
There seems to be many steam beds in an alluvial plain. It's pretty clear that a liquid water river system once flowed there. You would think a river/stream system would be the ultimate place to start searching for life. But they seem to have a better target.
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They didn't, they moved right along.
Well, a couple things to realize:
1) They certainly did get a ChemCam measurement of at least a couple of the sedimentary outcrops -- definitely the Goulburn Scour at the landing site, and probably the Link outcrop. In the Raw Image [nasa.gov] archive it shows shots from the Cam part of ChemCam around the time they would have been departing Link, and those are used for context of what ChemCam is shooting. They've been shooting quite a bit of things with the laser, since it's "cheap".
2) ChemCam isn't designed to find
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Oh, and a couple relevant things I learned watching the news conference [ustream.tv]:
John Grotzinger sounded a lot more open to the possibility of there being preserved organics in these rocks than in that quote, but noted that the presence of water over long periods could have also oxidized the organics into CO2.
In response to Emily Lakdawalla's question specifically about whether they regretted driving on from this site without using other instruments, John said that having found several such outcrops so far makes the
Re:Water, or some other fluid? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are other fluids than water that can sustain a semicolloidal solution or carry sediments. I assume that scientists now have to figure out what fluid flowed, rather than simply assuming that it had to be water.
I take it you've never heard of Occam's Razor. Given the composition of Mars and other evidence gathered to date water is by FAR the most likely substance to have caused this.
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I take it you've never heard of Occam's Razor. Given the composition of Mars and other evidence gathered to date water is by FAR the most likely substance to have caused this.
I bet it was Florida Orange Juice. Prove me wrong!
Re:Water, or some other fluid? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Water, or some other fluid? (Score:4, Funny)
Orange juice is mostly water, so water is still the correct answer.
Human beings are mostly water, so I guess we can explain Mount Rushmore as "water erosion"? ;-)
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Re:Water, or some other fluid? (Score:5, Informative)
First, water is required for life as we know it, but the presence of water is no guarantee for life. Second, this is not a mission to determine if there are traces of life or not. Curiosity is mostly a geological mission, with an emphasis of finding out if there were ever conditions suitable to sustain life as we know it That's not anywhere near the same thing as finding proof there ever was or even if there still is life on Mars.
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Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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Pretty much what I said the first time...
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If it was water than there should be evidence of life even if it is only bacterial life. Even if they only discover bacterial life than some of these religious nut will have some explaining to do.
They're well practiced in explaining this kind of thing away. There's plenty enough evidence on Earth to question, if not completely contradict, some of their claims.
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By that measure, the gas clouds surrounding Eta Carinae should also contain life, despite being a hard vacuum (with water vapour) and UV radiation that would sterilize your skin (no easy task) before evaporating it.
We hypothesise that water is essential for life. That does not mean that where there is water, there must be life.
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I take it you've never heard of Occam's Razor.
I've never heard of Occam's Razor. What is it? I'm imagining some kind of 7 legged, supersonic, invisible shoe.
Re:Water, or some other fluid? (Score:5, Funny)
I've never heard of Occam's Razor. What is it? I'm imagining some kind of 7 legged, supersonic, invisible shoe.
It's an Olde English Cellphone.
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Your junior (7-10 age group, whichever country you're in) school teachers were incredibly negligent, or you were a stupid, inattentive pupil. Or you had some sort of attention-seeking disease. Or possibly you're under 7 years old (is there an age question on signing up for Slashdot - it's that long since I did it, I don't remember). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor [wikipedia.org]
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Yeah, maybe hydrazine or Dowtherm A or tetrahydrofuran or propylene glycol methyl ether acetate.
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Does it even have to be a fluid? What about a flow of fine particles, or something like a pyroclastic flow?
True to a point, but these generally flow for a lesser distance and result in more angular particles.
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Pyroclastics can flow for tens of kilometres, possibly a hundred kilometres (some of the Campi Flegrei pyroclastics around the Naples Metropolitan district have travelled approaching a hundred kilometres, and crossed passes of several hundred metres climb; "hmmm") though a few kilometres is more common
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Not without leaving ventifacts.
No, it could (theoretically) be a gas, or a gas/ solid mixture (aerosol). Unfortunately, to generate a sufficiently high vertical component to the forces on the sediment grain (and so lift it in order to move it) , the lower the density of your fluid and the lower the viscosity, the higher the velocity you need. (I drill holes, horizontally, kilometres long, in rock, for a living. This is well s
Good thing we didn't land then... (Score:3)
Rover could have been washed away.
Launch, fly 54.6 million kilometers, land, drown. No profit in that.
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Launch, fly 54.6 million kilometers, land, drown. No profit in that.
Conclusive proof of the existence of large amounts of liquid water on Mars would be absolutely worth the expense.
Look closely (Score:5, Insightful)
I see Thoat tracks.
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I see Thoat tracks.
Willis tracks.
What NASA is hiding from us (Score:2)
You have to search through all the photographs, they try to hide them in the flood of images, but one some pictures I can clearly see the tracks of a wheeled vehicle. PROOF there are aliens!
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Of course there are aliens on Mars. Three of them, although one has died. And all three have wheels. Plus, there are a couple of aliens in orbit around Mars.
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Speaking as a Martian, what have you got against Carthage?
Props to submitter and editor (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Props to submitter and editor (Score:5, Interesting)
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What an awesome website bro. More of these please!!!
Honest question (Score:3)
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Very.
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If they find anything, it's likely to be unicellular. Multicellular life on Earth took billions of years to appear, and we think surface water on Mars disappeared an awful long time ago - probably not giving time for anything more complex than bacteria to appear.
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I think I'll fire up my Cobra and make another attempt a finding a Thargoid fleet. (An Oolite reference for those benighted souls who don't know the game.)
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But the good news is that these stromatolites appear to have been deposited (a billion years ago) in intermittent or ephemeral lakes in an inter-montane basin, interbedded on a large scale with coarse sands and conglomerates.
Which (the conglomerates) is what we're seeing here.
Saw a meteorite's suevite deposit too. Good weekend, well worth the e
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How naive am I to get excited at the thought we might happen upon a fossil?
Not quite as naive as getting excited at the thought that we might find some live red-skinned Princesses of Mars or green six-limbed Warriors of Mars, but not far off.
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But I reluctantly have to say that the probability of seeing one is not high.
They're just saying this to piss of the Fundies (Score:2, Troll)
Er... why water? (Score:2)
Doesn't "round" stones predicting water, just mean they thing it round becase it was caused by erosion caused by water?
What is to stop other kinds of erosion from also making round stones? Would not wind erosion given enough time perhaps do the same thing? Do they not have terrible dust storms on Mars? How are they measuing how long it took to create the erosion?
Anyway it seems a bit of a leap to me.
Re:Rocks (Score:4, Insightful)
So we spend billions to look at dirt !!
Look, touch, analyze. It sure beats sending 2-3 meatbags on Mars to do the same thing.
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I believe those meatbags are commonly referred to as: "Ugly bags of mostly water"
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Meat Popsicles!!
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I believe those meatbags are commonly referred to as: "Ugly bags of mostly water"
As long as you don't ask about the glowy bits. Or the probe code.
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I see you've never seen Surrogates [wikipedia.org]. Pretty good SF flick, you should check it out.
Re:Rocks (Score:4, Insightful)
And imagine how much more they could get done while they sit around on that red rock waiting to die.
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Indeed... Like his navel
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So we spend billions to look at dirt !!
On Soviet Red Planet water finds YOU!
Soil. (Score:2, Informative)
It's called soil. Dirt is the stuff stuck on the bottom of your shoes.
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no, soil contains organic remains. dirt and regolith do not.
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I don't believe there is any requirement for soil to contain organic remains.
Wikipedia disagrees a bit (Score:3)
Soil is a natural body consisting of layers (soil horizons) that are primarily composed of minerals which differ from their parent materials in their texture, structure, consistency, colour, chemical, biological and other characteristics. It is the unconsolidated or loose covering of fine rock particles that covers the surface of the earth.[1] Soil is the end product of the influence of the climate (temperature, precipitation), relief (slope), organisms (flora and fauna), parent materials (original minerals
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Doctor, heal thy self.
The saying I posted is just a funny way of saying "hey, this stuff (the dirt) is important."
I wasn't trying to be pedantic. I used to work at
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It's called soil. Dirt is the stuff stuck on the bottom of your shoes.
Isn't saying "dirt" (for soil) just a colloquial US usage?
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You have a problem with that? (Hint : look at the username.)
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Those future houses and vineyards on Mars are totally set. =)
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But foundations still slide off their houses.. or something :)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-19725952 [bbc.co.uk]
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you sure bro? cause I absolutely love "it".
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There's lots of love for Curiosity... but it won't be found on Mars, it's all here millions of miles away.
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What would be really cool is if Curiosity found some arrows heads along the banks.
Well, yes. Cooler still if they found some pony hoof prints. In pink. And a unicorn's teardops solidified into purest diamond....
Sorry, it's Friday afternoon at work. The beer is calling.
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It's interesting the sucker practically just landed and barely started roving, and Kazaam!; there's a major discovery at the first rock grouping it encounters.
* puts on tinfoil hat *
Yes, it's very, um, interesting indeed.
Of course the left-leaning hippies in NASA would have to come up with something interesting in order to justify their vast taxpayer-funded subsidies, funds which have been literally stolen AT GUNPOINT from honest hard working US citizens in order to underwrite international communism and the fluoridization of our water.
* leaves on tinfoil hat just in case *
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Now when I go to Mapquest and type in "Hottah" they're going to prompt me "Earth or Mars?"
Try Apple Maps. It'll automatically go to Mars.
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You're wrong on all 3 points.Only a few percent by volume of rocks have more than a percent or so of porosity ; anything with less than a percent