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Space

NASA Has Found Evidence Of Oceans On Mars 117

Posted by timothy from the let's-send-(most)-actors-to-check-it-out dept.
An unnamed correspondent points to this Sunday Times story, writing: "They have discovered ocean beds on Mars." The "they" refers to NASA scientists relying on information from the Mars Global Surveyor, which has transmitted "detailed pictures of rocks that could only have been created by sedimentation." A full announcement is expected next week from NASA -- wouldn't it be nice if they would simply release news as it happens rather than create News Happenings?
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NASA Has Found Evidence Of Oceans On Mars More

NASA Has Found Evidence Of Oceans On Mars

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  • I'm sure the same government that can't keep scandal after scandal under wraps has been concealing the fact that alien life exists for many years now.

    Your troll was stupid. If you're going to troll, at least post something funny.

    Have a nice day.


    --
  • They've decided that there was water on Mars. The last report, from a few months ago, speculated that the valleys and stream-like erosion had been produced by liquid-hot rock flowing across the surface.

    It'll only be a few months until they take this back in favor of something else.

    I don't think we'll know for sure until a man stands and spends some considerable time there.
  • Knowledge is a strange thing. You never know you needed to know something until you know it.

  • RANT

    One of my perpetual frustrations with the scientific community, is thier insistance on putting forth possible answers and explinations as facts while working with only a relativly small amount of data. The water on Mars question has been "proven" and "disproven" about a dozen times already based on the same available data. I have nothing against scientific research, on the contrary, I belive it is a most worthy pursuit. But I get sick and tired of the incredible hubris of stating "such and such" as scientific fact when really all they are submitting are inducive/deductive leaps based on given persons way of observing given data.

    /RANT

  • Doesn't anyone remember Cold Fusion? NASA is doing exactly the right thing by delaying their PR until they've published in a peer-reviewed journal.
  • No, more resources should be spent on space exploration; so that when a natural disaster/calamity of extinction level status strikes the earth we have a backup copy somewhere else.

    By your argument, you should only have one server for a site; just a really expensive one to handle everything. One power surge/script kiddy/cracker/etc later, you have lost everything.

    Despite you, the human species is valuable enough to me to warrant an off-site backup.
  • According to this page [weather.com] on weather.com, you wouldn't want to swim anyway.

    Of course, I can't think of anything I'd want to do on a day with a high of -82F other than sit by a warm fire and drink hot chocolate.
  • How the fuck is this a troll? Moderations and cheap $3 crack don't mix.
  • A full announcement is expected next week from NASA -- wouldn't it be nice if they would simply release news as it happens rather than create News Happenings?

    Don't begrudge the NASA dudes the "hype" generated by pre-announcing an announcement. Though it is kind of annoying on some level, every bit of focus that is put to NASA work (and that of other related teams like those of NEAR) is another PR victory for the whole space-exploration effort.

    If we don't want to be stuck on this ball long after we've depleted it (since we show few signs of stopping that trend) , we'd better get out there and look for other options for resources... which requires exploration.

    Plus, it is kinda cool....
  • Mars once had an atmosphere, water, the whole bit. Very similar to earth. Considering it was formed from the same general debris field as earth, this isn't really suprising.

    What mars DIDN'T have was a strong magnetic field. Mars' geothermal core cooled (partly due to the planet's smaller size insulating it less, and possibly it may have less nuclear isotopes buried in it (again, proporitional to its mass) so it probably generated less heat in the first place.)

    A magnetic field shields the planet from solar wind. Channels the charged particles around the planet, or down to smack head-on into the poles (forming the aurora borealis). Without a magnetic field, they strafe tangentially through the outer atmosphere, sandblasting it away. A molecule here, a few molecules there, over millions and eventually billions of years the atmosphere gets eroded away.

    When the atmospheric pressure dropped too far, the oceans evaporated, probably freezing along the way as the planet lost its insulating blanket. The water vapor was just more atmosphere, to be sandblasted away by the solar wind.

    Same thing would have happened to earth if we hadn't had the van allen belt and all protecting us. Planets farther out (such as the gas giants) don't have to deal with as intense a solar wind, and can rely on their own gravity to attract and retain gas faster than it gets stripped even without a magnetic shield. But they don't get much light or heat from the sun, either.

    Rob

  • I don't think that's quite true. In general, scientific papers are written by scientists for other scientists. In many cases, theories *are* stated in a way that sounds like they are factual. Often the author actually does believe them, and the scientific community as a whole recognizes them as being just theories unless they're backed up with sufficient references. This really helps the readability of papers too. If you read a paragraph that uses the word "putative" more than three times, you end up with a headache, whether you understood it or not.

    The real problem occurs when the media picks up on science. In this case, their audience has no way of telling fact from proposed theories. Even if magazines and others were to include references with their stories, most people wouldn't know what they were or what to do with them. Too many people believe everything they read in the papers or see on TV to be true, indisputable facts.

    Who's to blame? Directly, nobody (or possibly everybody!), but it is somewhat irresponsible of the media to present information as facts when we don't know that they necessarily are. Stating that something is only a theory, or that some scientists believe that $X may be true isn't really "news"-like enough, and just won't sell. Ultimately, it all comes down to the marketability of the so-called news story.

    Of course, we (as consumers of the news stories) are also at fault. If everybody were just a tiny bit more skeptical and thought critically about what was presented to them by the media and other people, the world would probably be a much saner place.
  • Sedimentary rock is (at least on Earth) precipitated out of water. Metamorphic rock is igneous or sedimentary rock that has been subjected to extremely high temperatures and/or pressures. Just thought I'd clear that up. Sorry for the nitpick :)
  • The reason for this is that water is a polar fluid, meaning that it has an electrical charge...

    Water as a whole does not have an electrical charge - it is a neutral molecule.

    in the case of water, a negative charge on the oxygen atom and a positive charge on the hydrogen atoms. This charge is weaker then the normal charges that bind atoms into molecules, so that the water molecules stay slightly connected to each other but aren't connected into a larger molecule...in other words, they become a liquid.

    This is commonly called "hydrogen bonding". You are right in that is one of the major reasons that water exists as a liquid. However, your explanation is s drastic oversimplification - there are many other interactions that also increase the cohesive forces in liquids. Acetone and hexane and thionyl chloride and [substitute compounds of choice here] are liquids and yet lack any hydrogen bonding. Long- and medium-chain hydrocarbons (think oils) are liquids although they pretty much lack any polarity whatsoever.

    As things stand on Mars now, the pressure is low enough that only traces (if anything) of liquid water on Mars.

    What exactly do you mean by sulfur hydroxide? That kinda puzzled me.

    there was never enough pressue to turn any fluid but water into a liquid.

    I wouldn't go quite that far...
  • Too bad all of the alien probe technology recovered at Roswell is of the anal variety.


    All generalizations are false.

  • I hope you're no serious! (Score:3)

    by 2nd Post! ( 213333 ) <gundbear.pacbell@net> on Saturday December 02, 2000 @11:22PM (#586029) Homepage
    NASA's budget, IIRC, is pretty small.
    <a href="http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/facts/HTML /FS-003-HQ.html"> NASA's budget</a>

    Something like 14 billion a year. Given that the US GNP is close to hundreds of trillions of dollars...

    Regardless of whether I'm correct or you believe me about the money, sedimentation, as a process, does not work with volcanic activity or wind. It's defined by the existence of a liquid and solutes, things dissolved into the liquid.

    IE, a sediment. Take sand, mud, clay, etc, in a jar of water, and let the stuff settle down and compact into rock, stone, whatever. This process just isn't defined by wind or volcanic activity, where volcanic activity melts and reforges pre-existing stone, and wind wears down and erodes pre-existing stone.

    Geek dating! [bunnyhop.com]
  • >>It's sad, and it shouldn't be, but they have to have press releases to maintain their "market share" >It does not seem very sad to me. Agreed. If NASA didn't promote themselves by publishing information, people would be wondering what the benefits are. Their budget could be (more) in jeopardy.
  • god fucking damn that bunny
  • The religious zealots do not claim that there isn't life on other planets. They claim there is not intelligent life on other planets.

    Connah
  • Well, I did see Red Planet. Unfortunately I was too enthralled with Trinity's erect nipples to pay much attention to the "plot".


    All generalizations are false.

  • Why being a scientist while a bunch of doctors could come handy ? Wazzup with that relativity theory, does it save human lives ? The answer is in geometry and its two well known kind of angles: obtuse and acute.

    Goodnight
  • Remember that on Earth, multicellular animals and plants evolved in the oceans first, then moved to land. With less time available on a planet like Mars, they might have got somewhere in the oceans but never made it out.

  • Not again (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Is it just me, or is NASA changing its mind about water on Mars more often than Florida changes its mind about the election?
  • Someone just multi-lingualed your article, and you called if off topic? C'mon!
  • Perhaps you can do a better job of sending a probe 60 million miles away and communicating with it with a 15 minute signal lag? Don't bash NASA, they aren't morons, they just have finite (very little) resources which they have to spread among many projects. Most of that goes to ISS and only very little is left for probes. Also, reentry with smooth landing on a planet from orbit is probably one of the hardest things to do for a space probe. Even on Earth, cosmonauts crash-land and astronauts used to do a splash-down, both in extremely well shielded capsules. Not exactly a smooth landing and not good enough for a probe. Moreover, for Earth reentry we have almost instantaneous data/telemetry link.
  • Obviously if you're going to hold a major news conference you want to give the newsies plenty of time to show up, run up the antennas on their satellite trucks, and prepare good questions for the reporters. You also want the scientists around the world who are going to be eagerly watching this live the opportunity to set up conference rooms with cable feeds.

    Awww, come on. The newsies are already in Florida and have to be wanting to cover something else. Witness the speed with which the newsies can throw something together and the plethora of extra resources they have. When you have money to pay a set of helicopters to fly along with a friggin' Ryder truck to Tallahassee, NASA can make this move faster.

    Sports press conferences are laid on inside of a day--sometimes, inside of hours. Science news is, in general, a lot more interesting and a lot more important than sports. So why do we have to wait a month [at times]?


    --

  • Can you imagine... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ... a Beowulf cluster of these?

    Thank you.

    -- Patrick Bateman, Esq.
  • How do we know that these were oceans of water ? They could be something else, though I haven't the slightest clue what. Someone more knowledgable comment on why it must be water?
  • It's sad, and it shouldn't be, but they have to have press releases to maintain their "market share"

    It does not seem very sad to me. Keeping up the public interest in the work seems like a very reasonable thing. Keeping up the interest of the folks paying for the work is what happens around the world to anybody doing anything. The only persons exempted from this reality are the independantly wealthy doing something as a hobby.

    Billions of taxpayer dollars do not fall into the "just leave me alone while I just do stuff" category.

    Kudos to NASA for keeping on top of the marketing game. What would be sad is if they lost the savy realization that this is what they must do to keep funding on track.
  • A full announcement is expected next week from NASA -- wouldn't it be nice if they would simply release news as it happens rather than create News Happenings?

    Of course it would, but that would mean that NASA would understand good PR. No, they like to hold things close to the vest, preferring pomp and circumstance to timely news. NASA's still stuck in the Sixties as far as their public relations shop runs.

    Anyone who's read NASA Watch [nasawatch.com] for some time knows how clueless NASA's PR shop is. But they were getting better under the late Brian Welch [spaceref.com], who, I feel, was working to improve the immediacy and efficacy of NASA press coverage. Welch was instrumental in the Dreamtime work done on ISS, and really had a thing for using Webcams on stuff. He initially opposed Keith Cowing's press accreditation efforts, but I really do feel that Brian "got it".

    But in this era of "faster, cheaper, better", NASA PAO seems to be still thinking "slower, costlier, bad theater".


    --
  • Sure they are ocean beds. Just like those river beds which were later found to be formed from wind.

    NASA is just desperate for cash, so they resort to sensationalism to get support for their budget bills in Congress. As an astronomer, I think that space travel is great, but it shouldn't come at the cost of our collective dignity.

    I can see the headline now--"NASA, the boy who cried 'Life!'"

  • Well, Venus has a lot of Sulfuric Acid rain, but the air pressure is apparently too high for pools or oceans of the stuff to form. Light breezes carry half ton boulders around like grains of sand, and no probe has lasted on the surface for more than a couple of minutes.

    So Mars is downright friendly by comparison

    www.matthewmiller.net [matthewmiller.net]
  • Nasa did a good job with the Viking probes, and they used 1970s technology. Nasa can do fine, they just need money to do it with.
  • Hmmm. Maybe someone needs just a TINY sense of humor? Hmmmmmm?

    -Kef
  • Not only does Mars have water, but it looks like it may rain there on Tuesday. You can see the forecast for yourself, right here [infobrand.com].

    We won't say "Pig F#%!er" in front of Jesus, even if you step on our toes! The Linux Pimp [thelinuxpimp.com]

  • There are features on Mars that are pretty hard to explain except as water erosion features, i.e. dry creekbeds. But that doesn't necessarily imply oceans. Also, it's been suggested that some of these erosion features actually came from releases of liquid CO2 from underground. There is also some debate about whether there are any relatively recent erosion features (i.e. within the last few million years.)

    The polar caps are partly water and partly solid CO2 ("dry ice").

  • Moderate this up!
  • There's your answer.


    All generalizations are false.

  • This is actually pretty well understood. Mars doesn't have as much gravity as the earth (1/3 g), so it's been gradually losing its atmosphere over time. These days, its surface is pretty close to being a vacuum. Water boils in a vacuum. The water vapor was lost into space along with most of the rest of the atmosphere.
  • Clarification is always good. :-) And, it helps to clarify the point I was trying to make.

    As the name implies, sedimentary rock is created by sediment precipitating out of a suspension (as you noted, on earth, water). And, as you pointed out, metamorphic rock is rock that has been subjected to high temps and/or pressure. But, you need either igneous or sedimentary rock to begin with. And, only igneous rock come from volcanoes.

    RD

    cjs
  • All semen is made by God for the purpose of getting women pregnant.
    Oh, I disagree. It's also an "erotic elixir" for the ladies! [semenex.com]


    All generalizations are false.

  • There's no reason to think life would be extinct on Mars if it had once evolved there. Bacteria are the dominant form of life on earth, and bacteria are very tough. They could be living under the Martian surface or at the polar caps. As discussed in a recent Slashdot forum, the Viking tests for bacteria were ambiguous. We really need a sample return mission to find out for sure if there is bacterial life on Mars.

    If you were thinking of fossils of multicellular plants or animals, I'd bet a six-pack you'll be disappointed. Multicellular life appears as an afterthought in the history of life on Earth, whereas bacteria seem to have evolved almost as soon as the era of heavy bombardment ended. We probably live in a galaxy teeming with life -- all of it single-celled.

  • Wow, that would explain a few things...

  • Re:Oh, please (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Mr President, sir, the media is getting suspicious...seems we haven't screwed up any time recently, so they're suspecting cover-ups.

    Well, then, we'd better let one go. What's on the agenda?

    Reads: Government smuggling arms to fascist rebels, secretely importing Cuban cigars; Scientists have conclusive proof of life on Mars; and that you, sir, are romantically involved with Ms Iowa.

    Damn. I was hoping we didn't have to reveal the fascists just yet, but looks like we're stuck.

  • And give him another +1 for the phalluses.


    All generalizations are false.

  • Are you sure mars had large amounts of nitrogen to begin with?
  • Now they have to justify all their advances to a public that wants the glitz of Star Trek but don't realize where our science actually is at technology wise.

    This is a bigger issue than I think a lot of people here on Slashdot realize. Here's an illustrative example from one of my classes:

    My Software Engineering teacher was talking about how many things you'd have to engineer into the space shuttle (she used to work for NASA, so this was an area of expertise for her) - she opened it up to the class so we could get an appreciation for how complex complex systems really were.

    The suggestions were, for the most part, right on: Things like navigation, communication, life support. Then one person, the one sitting next to me, piped up.

    "What about the gravity controller?"

    Dead silence.

    "You know, the part that controlls the gravity on the shuttle...."

    "Um... we can't do that yet." I had to explain. It absolutely floored me - this person in my class seemed to believe that we had actually had that level of technology.

    So yes, NASA has a long way to go before it's what the public expects.

  • In Episode 3, we discover that Jar-Jar is Anakin's father.

    You're welcome.


    All generalizations are false.

  • sweet.. guess there is some reason to go to mars.
  • Are you sure mars had large amounts of nitrogen to begin with?

    Certain? No. However, there is very strong empyrical evidence - both Earth and Jupiter did. Both still have plenty. Fractioning effects would cause distribution to vary with distance from the sun, but they wouldn't just leave a gaping hole in Mars' orbit.

    Another possibility is that it's all bound up in ammonium salts or bound up in nitrate rocks via mechanisms like the one you mentioned for water. I don't *remember* hearing about vast amounts of nitrates on Mars, but I'm not an expert on Martian geology, either.
  • Thank God that you're doing your part to help by whining on Slashdot! God Bless you, Sir!


    All generalizations are false.

  • well at least we know where the next Baywatch series is to be shot.

  • News as it happens??? These are ancient oceans! (Score:4)

    by LauraLolly ( 229637 ) on Saturday December 02, 2000 @07:43PM (#586066)
    wouldn't it be nice if they would simply release news as it happens rather than create News Happenings?

    In this case, that would have meant releasing this information several million years ago!

  • This might just be me, but haven't they already established that there was indeed water on Mars in the past, leading to certain patterns of erosion and valleys and such. Stories like this [brown.edu] and this [go.com] and this [spacedaily.com] (all from about a year ago) make me less impressed by this "announcement."

    I think Nasa is just trying to do ANYTHING to get rid of their bad rap from the "faster, cheaper, more crashes" approach that led to the Mars debacles.

  • What the hell? This was supposed to be funny, and was moded up to 4 last night for being funny. Now it's 3 for interesting. For crying out loud it was supposed to be a joke...change it back to funny! It's a joke! And how did this thread about conspiracy theory get to talking about masturbation anyway?

  • Where did all the water go? (Score:3)

    by Eloquence ( 144160 ) on Saturday December 02, 2000 @07:46PM (#586069)
    It is actually a pretty accepted theory that there have once been water oceans on Mars, the interesting question, however, is: Where did all the water go? It doesn't seem so unlikely that Mars may have seas or even oceans under the surface, just like Europe. If we don't go there, we will never know.

    --

  • They seen to be buttering us up. (Score:3)

    by Rhinobird ( 151521 ) on Saturday December 02, 2000 @07:49PM (#586070) Homepage
    This seems like they're leading us towards the inevitable conclusion that yes there is in fact life on Mars. They probaly did find conclusive evidence with the Viking lander, but they felt that the public wasn't ready yet. Now everybody's going goo-goo over evidence of water that "raises the probability of life on Mars". Then they find rocks in Antarctica that looks like a chunk of Mars with fossilized microbes. Now oceans.

    Say it already! Say there is life beyond this little rotten planet! Spill the f!@$!@#ing beans. Let go of the religous zealotry that says that life only exists on this planet.

    And in the end, the Greys will thank you.
  • So when do we go? You know... get on the big ship and abandon earth to go live on mars just to find out that "Oops, we forgot to convert to metrics... there is no water."
  • Give the quality of Mars movies released from hollywood lately any one of us (meaning /. readers) could easily do much better with a camcorder and a handful of red dirt!
  • There is no ozone layer on Mars. That means we would somehow build our live support systems on the red planet. I recalled that NASA also discovered that there is no water in Mars (on and off discoveries). Why o' why we spend all these time discovering these stuff on Mars? Should be spend all these resources to improve our Earth first? Plus, it's probably not fun when you look out the window and say "Hey, look at the red desert!"

    ============

  • A better place to search... (Score:3)

    by DESADE ( 104626 ) <slashdot@nOsPAm.bobwardrop.com> on Saturday December 02, 2000 @07:41PM (#586074)
    Now that some sea beds have been located, it would seem like a very likely place to search for fossil evidence of life. Makes the chances much better. Rather than making a wild guess, we can now narrow down the search to where evidence may most likely exist. Interesting.
  • Mars = Arrakis
    Space worms landed on Arr*cough* Mars and drank up all the water. They roam underground eating up tiny bacterium that managed to find water that the worm left behind. Prediction: We will all find our new narcotic on Mars that will be way better than caffeine.

    Wait a minute. We don't beleive in aliens. And books arn't necissarily true either. Hmm, nevermind.

    Roy Miller
    :wq! DOH!
  • Ha, I thought you were talking about Europe (the continent). Blah, I thought that was intriguing so I went to my local friendly search engine [google.com] only to discover you meant the moon orbiting Jupiter, not the fairly silly continent.

    Well, if anyone wants to see pictures of this water under Europe phenom, you can check them out here [geoman.net].
  • But this would also mean that what happened in Mars did not happen 100000000000000000000 years ago...

    I'd think not, especially considering that 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 (100 quintillion) years is far older than our ~13,000,000,000 (13 billion) year old universe.

    =p

  • Press releases (Score:5)

    by lonesome phreak ( 142354 ) on Saturday December 02, 2000 @07:50PM (#586078) Journal

    NASA is, unfortunatly, competing with movies when it comes to gaining an audience. They have had to come up with marketing ideas, press releases, merchandise, and such to compete for public attention.

    It's sad, because gone are the days when all their money could be poured directly into pure research. Now they have to justify all their advances to a public that wants the glitz of Star Trek but don't realize where our science actually is at technology wise.

    It's sad, and it shouldn't be, but they have to have press releases to maintain their "market share", because the politicians force pure-research departments to compete with hollywood.

  • So what we have here is not only the demonstration that these sediments could not be formed by volcans or dust (here chemical differentations are mostly insignificant). What we have here is that not only water formed them but that they were formed on different physico-chemical conditions. And probably biological ones.

    Did you mean volcanos or Vulcans? If it's the later, then you can bet on a biological process. Naturally, I'd have to wonder why Vulcans would even want to do such a thing.

    FWIW, if I recall my geology correctly ,sedimentary rock is generally not formed by volcanic activity unless the dust emitted by the volcanos were suspended in a liquid and then slowly precipitated out over time and under great pressure. Ignatious rock is formed by volcanic activity.

    Of course, NASA hasn't made the offical announcement. So, we'll just have to wait to see what that is on December 7th.

    RD

  • The water was probably split into loose hydrogen atoms (or protons) and oxygen by solar radiation in the upper atmosphere. The protons drifted off wit hthe solar wind and the oxygen bound to metals in the planet's crust. Water vapour is very heavy, and probably wouldn't escape so easily.

    Actually, water vapour is much lighter than molecular oxygen, molecular nitrogen, or carbon dioxide. The nitrogen, at least, wouldn't have bound that readily to metals, and so would have had to boil off. The lightest simple nitrogen compound is ammonia, which has about the same molecular weight as water; if ammonia could boil off, then it's likely that water vapour could too, if I understand correctly.

    Not that I'm disagreeing with your mechanism; I'm just pointing out that direct escape probably happened too. Your mechanism nicely explains why Mars doesn't have an atmosphere rich in hydrogen compounds (water, methane, ammonia).
  • Water is a very common substance in the solar system. Look at the moons of the gas giants -- the most popular construction materials for these were rock and water ice. Actually it's a little surprising that the Earth has any dry land at all, rather than being covered to a depth of a hundred miles in water. The only reason liquid water is uncommon in the solar system is that so many moons and planets are either too hot, too cold, or have too little gravity to hold an atmosphere. (Water boils in a vacuum.)
  • well if that aint the pot calling the kettle black.. What pisses you off is that when I troll I get +1 bonus.
  • Information gathered from orbiters shows that surrounding the northern lowlands is an aparent shoreline of a coean that once covered most of the Northern hemisphere. The shoreline is a long similarly textured area that has relatively the same altitude. The only spots along the assumed shoreline that have an anomolous altitude are 2 regions that display evidence of abundant vulcanism.

    Also there is a type of impact crater on Mars charicterized by what is called "flow ejecta," meaning that the material ejected from the crater flows like a liquid. This is believed to occur when there is subsurface water (liquid or solid). Some believ that subsurface liquid water still exists on mars.

    There are also countless indications water erosion, from ground water sepage leading to the collapse of the ground above (like whats happening in mexico city. In some places the ground is sinking by 30 centimeters a year), to massive flows carrying huge ammounts of sediment.

    on the other hand, this may be the first time this sort of evidence has been gathered. But the conclusions are not exciting. Now hearing that there was NO water on Mars, that would be freaky.
  • We're working from a two-sentence summary by a journalist. Why don't we wait and see what the scientists involved actually publish before getting mad at them.
  • This just in: the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board has decided to resume manual recounts due to possible sedimentation on Mars...Bush to appeal to Supreme Court immediately!
  • If ten thousand monkeys with ten thousands typewriters create ten thousand Mars-related screenplays, one will be the truth. If that Mars-movie frequency continues to increase along the lines of Moore's Law, we should have our answer before 2010.


    All generalizations are false.

  • No CO2 doesn't stay liquid even at 1atm. It takes a lot of pressure to keep dry ice from subliming straight to a gas. Which is why they called solid C02 dry ice i guess.
  • Considering the quality of the Mars movies released recently, any 'home movies' NASA makes could easily do much better.
  • wouldn't it be nice if they would simply release news as it happens rather than create News Happenings?
    In the article it says the announcement will be published in next weeks edition of Science, they're not just waiting for the heck of it, they're waiting so it can be published in a journal. That sounds legit to me.
  • A full announcement is expected next week from NASA -- wouldn't it be nice if they would simply release news as it happens rather than create News Happenings?

    Oh, you mean like the media did when Bush... I mean Gore... wait, I mean Bush... won the presidency on the 7th?

    Yeah, that'd be great! ;)

  • With 1/3G, hooters can be 3X bigger! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Since Mars has roughly 1/3 the Earth's gravity, bust enhancements can be made 3X bigger without becoming too heavy to manage. Woo hoo!
  • On what concerns evidence of Oceans in Mars then NASA would be clearly loosing. About that tons of people talked about that. Even yesterday I noted that on this post [slashdot.org] : "...a planet that _possessed_ an ocean and _probably_ several seas..." For me and many investigators there are no doubts that the North Hemisphere was an oceanic basin. Personally I came into this conclusion in 1998, after seeing the powerful blowups in Acydalia Planitia where huge masses of water caved channels of a kilometer deep in short frames of time (aka scablands). And this phenomena is everywhere in Mars. As if suddenly, something provoked waters to move wildly all over the planet. Once I had a site talking about this...

    What admires me is that after 30 years of several investigators showing and proving that water existed in Mars, after bashing all of them with Hoaglands and "Elvis leaves Mars stage" we seem to see old detractors claiming they found "oceans"... First I would like to see how many oceans they found... Second if they will dare to remember 30 years of investigations and people knoking NASA'a doors. And if they will remember their participation as main detractors of "water in Mars". Until June, Malin was known as Mr. Thirst, as he didn't believe about any water in Mars and any evidence on "Dry Mars" was immediately published in his site.

    And frankly he continues this story... People, THERE IS water in Mars. 90% of it flew into Cosmos. Believe me. We still don't have the reason WHY it happened. For this we need a systematic and VERY detailed map of Mars and not Malin's slideshow. But we know most of HOW it happened. Mars lost its atmosphere and went into cooking mode for some years. When the mess cooled down, most water was already gone. But not all. And the remaining 5-10% are still there. And not in Malin's high latitudes... well... only (good boy Malin but you didn't do all homework). Water is still flowing on Mars. Right on the equator.

    Look:
    http://ida.wr.usgs.gov/html/m08061/m0806185.html
    http://ida.wr.usgs.gov/html/m04018/m0401877.html
    http://ida.wr.usgs.gov/html/m04492/m0449202.html
    http://ida.wr.usgs.gov/html/m08059/m0805951.html
    http://ida.wr.usgs.gov/html/m08076/m0807686.html

    I mentioned this a few posts ago btw...
    And they are only a fraction of the evidence. But, probably the best part. And about this and aliens. Mr. NASAoids, are we going to wait ANOTHER 30 years for some Dr. Tuckletacker FIND on YOUR name that there is water and aliens on Mars? Hey, hey, hey... Yeah, maybe I'm talking about those aliens that COULD have built the Face... But I think, we pretty well know WHAT aliens COULD have built such thing, correct? And WHAT LEVEL OF INTELLIGENCE these poor things had... And we pretty well know that that's not the first and last piece of evidence. The dark patches and mostly the dark dunes are also a good piece of evidence...

    Oh these aliens.... Naaa their too insignificant to take time to write an article... What about bigger aliens? Well, if we wanna talk about the possibility of more serious aliens so we should go a little away from Cydonia... And we will not find pyramids and faces or even constructions but something else... Which does not fit on calculations... Oh yeah, send Hoagland bashing me and proving I'm talking about HyperSchyzics ;)

  • Amazing (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    All of this stuff is amazing. First there is life on Mars, but after checking their facts, it turns out that this can't be conclusively proven. Now they tells us that there once was water on Mars. Will this be debunked in the future as well???

    Another interesting point to make is that geology seems to be a bit of an art as well. Make a story to fit the facts (very little) and go from there. In a science such as chemistry we can see exactly what is happening, in real time if like. With geology, it seems that people have come up with reasons as to how and why these things occured without any proof. Note, this is not meant as a slight against that geologists that look at rocks and say, yes, that is that sort of rock, terrible to build on, you'll have to put the foundations down another 20m, but the sort that make claims, which they think have some scientific basis when there is none.

    Next they have everyone believing that 90% of the photos of "the red planet" aren't doctored. Think I am being paranoid. Don't believe a word I say. Ask any remote sensing person (a good place to start would be the local surveying department), and they will tell you the same thing. Even those photos coming out the Jet Propulsion Lab are doctored (and this came from someone who work at JPL). The reason. The "red planet", isn't as red as it's nickname suggests. It is actually more of a orangy color.

  • Yeah, where all this nitrogen in the form of atmospheric N2 comes from is an interesting question. In our biospere, N2 is both produced and consumed (to form nitrates, amonia, organic molecules such as amino acid) by bacteria and an endless cycle. I don't know if this means you need life to have an atmosphere rich in N2.
  • And with the lower gravity, the surf should be quite a bit bigger, and the beach balls should fly a lot further. Please remember to put on sun screen SPF2000 until an ozone layer can be established.

  • Oh, please (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 02, 2000 @07:55PM (#586102)
    Yes, that's right. It's all a grand plot. They've known for some time that there was definitely life on Mars, and the Evil Geniuses of NASA have been keeping it from the poor, dumb masses.

    Did it ever occur to you that maybe they're telling the truth, and that they're releasing the information as soon as they're reasonably confident they have their facts straight? Wouldn't that be far simpler than some bizarre conspiracy theory?

    Honestly, I think some people here need to take a frickin' break from the online world and get some fresh air from time to time. There are indeed evil/twisted/whatever people in the world, but not nearly as many as some people think.

  • You would be correct if this were only Hoaglands, UFO searchers and paranoia-minded schizos knocking NASA's doors. However it is not the case. Since the very first Mariner's missions, several investigators pointed to SEVERAL frames where CLEARLY there were traces much similar to those seen on Earth's hydrological conditions. For some time there was even a 50/50 relationship of leaving both theories fighting against each other. But after around 1973 it seems that someone or something pushed NASA toward the "Dry Theory". And even after all evidence pouring from the Vikings, NASA kept its pace on these theories. They evolved even into a world where we already had chronologies, epochs, timeframes, full tectonic explanations and a whole bunch of theoretical trash. What spoiled this was the Mars Face... Because the talk went around one of the possible oceanic landscapes in Mars. And while no one could get his good scientific article to be edited on Science or Nature, the topic didn't die. Because the Mars Face allowed it to live in a parallel world. Any person with a scientific knowledge would note many features on Cydonia that strongly suggest a seaside landscape. So a curiosity about a stupid hill spoiled a lot of things in NASA...

    They are now reviving the truth. And why? Because there are OTHER things they still don't want to talk about. About present water in Mars. About VERY POSSIBLE LIFE in Mars. Dr. Van Flandern seem to have found some strong evidences about this in the South Hemisphere. I think that there is also some good chances to find it on Arabia Terra. And I should tell that this is EXTRAORDINARY. Because it means that "they" survived the tragedy that dried the planet in very short time. And temperatures then were probably uch bigger then simple pasteurization...

    And, beyond this, there is the "weird" world. not pyramids or anything like that. Well there are pyramids in Mars but there is a chance they are a BIG NATURAL weirdness of Mars. Done with the probable help of aliens but those only wanted some sunlight... There are things much weirder than this. As one hill sorrounded by a compact set of craters all around and having a strange inner "valley" sorrouding its center... War Games? Don't know, frankly. But it is data that should not be ignored by any means. Until we get deeper in the facts and analysis.

    But about NASA. We surely have that they release information to not release other information. It is intersting to note that the issue of "there is water in Mars" started to rise and NASA releases the announcement about something JUST IN TIME! It does not talk about what or where. But if Sunday Times is right then they are keeping their old policy. Try to shut down one issue by releasing another one... Why they do this? It seems that they know they made a very slippery move back then. And now it is PAINFUL to recognise they were wrong.

    Or maybe they really have some Master Plans beyond 7 locks? And by some reason they do not want to open all doors? If they do then sorry people. I really don't know what you'll get from this. As far as I know half-world already knows about what you're trying to hide...
  • As a publicly funded operation, NASA has become conscious of the impact of good, bad or non-news. To assure maximium benefit (in the event of good stuff) they need to properly frame it, with all the proper experts available for commentary. Otherwise the talking heads on TV or ignorant savages in the print media get it all wrong, call in their own "experts", etc. I expect nothing less from NASA, in their quest to justify their existence and heavy budget. Seems last I heard was that apparent erosion was caused by dust storms. I'd like to know why wind and volcanic activity can't be the cause of this sediment. Probably have to wait for the next big announcement.

    --

  • IANAC, but...this is a pretty simple question to answer. (If I'm wrong, I am sure that I will be corrected!).

    On earth, the liquid that we see most often is water. The reason for this is that water is a polar fluid, meaning that it has an electrical charge...in the case of water, a negative charge on the oxygen atom and a positive charge on the hydrogen atoms. This charge is weaker then the normal charges that bind atoms into molecules, so that the water molecules stay slightly connected to each other but aren't connected into a larger molecule...in other words, they become a liquid.

    There are some other liquids that this is true of...alcohol, ammonia, sulfur hydroxide...all work under the same principle. And under enough pressure, nonpolar fluids such as methane and even helium can become liquid. But on the surface of Mars, there was never enough pressue to turn any fluid but water into a liquid. Hope this answers your question!

  • Who is talking about molecular oxygen or carbon dioxide boiling off? I mentioned hydrogen nuclei (protons) blowing off with the solar wind. Imagine the upper part of an atmosphere that is very sparse to begin with, under high energy (unfiltered solar radiation) conditions. Atomic oxygen, hydrogen etc, and a myriad of charged molecule fragments aren't as uncommon under these conditions as they are here on the earth's surface.

    If the oxygen part of the reaction remains in the upper atmosphere, the reaction eventually reaches an equilibrium. If the oxygen binds to materials on the surface, and is effectively taken out of the reaction, the reaction keeps going one way, until water stops reaching the upper atmospere...

  • A lot of this kind of stuff gets presented at the AMerican Geophysical Union Meeting in mid-December in San Francisco.

  • I agree it is old news. However there have been re-interpretation of Viking/Observator with the new Surveyor pics. Old oceanic features disappear under high resolution, and new ones appear. Means more work for the eggheads.

  • Who is talking about molecular oxygen or carbon dioxide boiling off? I mentioned hydrogen nuclei (protons) blowing off with the solar wind.

    You also mentioned that molecular water was too heavy to boil off readily, which turns out not to be the case. This is what I was responding to (by noting that nitrogen in some form _did_ boil off, indicating that molecular water could too).
  • I just wanted to elaborate on why Mars has a thin atmosphere; it's not just weak gravity. Three factors contributed to Mars' de-atmospherization:
    1. "Sputtering": the solar wind picks up ions from the outer atmosphere, accelerates them, and they smash into other ions, knocking them into space. Mars has a relatively weak magnetic field so it's unprotected (unlike Earth).
    2. Blown into space by asteroid impacts. Obviously this is a bigger factor because of the weak gravity, but the point is the atmosphere doesn't just float away.
    3. CO2 reacts with silicates to form solid carbonate, in effect condensing the atmosphere into rock. On Earth, volcanic activity recycles the CO2; not the case on Mars.
    4. And once Mars got cold enough, pretty much all the CO2 froze into the icecaps.
  • What I think the "problem" is, is we are in a weird time in human history.

    With this whole "internet" thing, and computers, and nanotechnology, and the space-race, we've had the unfortunate illusion that things in Science have to develop at an ever-accelerating pace. Certainly Moore's law was a huge contributor. (but is it even valid anymore? P IV anyone?)

    But the reality is, maybe the pace does increase for certain fields, at certain points, but overall, we've only known about atoms for about 100 years. Until we, as a species, are financially robust enough to have the luxury to send a person to Mars, we have to make all of these indirect observations, and even when we have direct observations, the data are going to be interpreted differently by different people, and the scientific community is going to have to do as they traditionally have done, duke it out until the most likely theory based on the evidence is most generally accepted. And the crackpots, vitally important to this process, will accept the others, and continue to attempt to prove them. Yes, there's a bit of rivalry and competition, and spite going on, because people who only live 80 or so years are trying to get in and get their funding (either public or private) within their lifespans. That's to be expected. That's why we're getting all these questionable and contradictory press releases. But the reality is, until more and better observations come in, and more debate happens, it's going to go back and forth, and the truth isn't going to come next year with the Pentium 5, it's going to come in 50 years with the first manned Mars mission (I'm being very optimistic). Be patient. Maybe you'll be dead by then, but did poor Galileo live to see Voyager snap pictures of Jupiter's moons? It's a tough reality.

  • If Slashdot ran NASA (Score:4)

    by DHartung ( 13689 ) on Sunday December 03, 2000 @03:21AM (#586120) Homepage
    If Slashdot ran NASA, all their press releases would look like this:
    fIrSt p05t!!!!

    Op3n w@t3r, n@t@l13 p0rTm@n (nVd3, p3tr1f13d) f0vNd oN m@rZ!!! t0t@LLy r3l1@bL3 l33t 1nf0!


    Uh, put more soberly:
    The official press release [nasa.gov] about the news conference was released 12/1, a week in advance, which is completely normal. This is the way this sort of thing has always been done, it's just that 99% of the time you don't hear about the news release that told you there'd be a press conference. (When you're on the internet, this happens -- geez, get used to it.)

    Obviously if you're going to hold a major news conference you want to give the newsies plenty of time to show up, run up the antennas on their satellite trucks, and prepare good questions for the reporters. You also want the scientists around the world who are going to be eagerly watching this live the opportunity to set up conference rooms with cable feeds.

    NASA's science news is of a different nature than its space program news. Technical news can be issued immediately, but science news does not, technically, belong to NASA: it belongs to the scientists who discovered it. All science results are "embargoed" based on the precedence of the science team in question, so that they can publish their results and get the career credit and institutional credit that they deserve for devoting, probably, years of their life to an obscure niche of science. They get this one chance to shine in the sun; NASA gets 'em every other week or so (though rarely as big as this one may prove). So NASA patiently waits for the release of the published science results until they can officially announce anything.

    Another thing: Science news, when it's reported prematurely, is often distorted. (Prime example: early orbital results for NEO asteroids always seem to result in Tuesday's DOOM IS NIGH headline being replaced by MAYBE NOT the next day. This leads to public disrespect for science, among other deleterious effects.) By refusing to issue breathless incomplete press releases as soon as pimple-faced slashdot readers demand, NASA increases the chance that:
    • science reporters will ask questions, not who ever isn't covering the election;
    • fully qualified experts will be on hand to answer those questions;
    • last-minute glitches in the publication process don't embarrass everyone;
    • science releases proceed professionally through the peer review process before publication;
    • the appropriate science community is aware and informed.

    There's more, probably, but that's it in a nutshell. This leisurely approach works; peer review is better than press-release sniping.
    ----
  • Well on the specifics of the sediment "found" by Malin and is colleague I still know nothing. I have to see the frames so I can say it is an original discover or another official re-discovery. However I can tell you that a large section of Mars presents sedimentation that is much proper for sea basins rather than volcanic or dust. First let me note that the evidence of the old Ocean is messed up. The washover there destroyed most landscape and sealines to a level that formed a completely new landscape. However it is well seen some features that are proper of oceans and seas.

    First - hills. And here Cydonia is one of the best places. These hills possess assymetrical erosion. They are eroded more in one direction than the other. No significative but still visible.

    First II - hills again most hills seem to present a "mesa" morphology that is common by its height. This is probably the best evidence of how deep were Mars waters. The tops were cleaned out by rains and winds, while the base was protected by water.

    Second - sedimentary layers. Dust sediments would not produce such a common and large sedimentary layering. Volcanic ones could have produced them but still there is the question that we are dealing with quite regular layers. And a very powerful deepness of sediments. For a volcanological explanation this would mean a constant periodic work for a very large period of time. Anyway not far from possible. Let's remember Io...

    Third the river basins. In several places one can see large rivers that end in a surface much similar to sea basins. And there are very clear traces of the same sedimentary deposition rivers produce on Earth. Note that the form of this deposition is very peculiar. In the center of the depositions blanket, there are small valleys. As if the river continues to flow a little bit inside the sea. The way they form can only happen if they go inside water.

    Fourth the "aftershock" sediments - After the huge water movements, water started to evaporate into space. Much like what you see on seaside, during low tide, there are several regions of Mars showing lines of sediments. In some places there are even evidence of the "last pools of water"

    Fifth the "stairs" formations - some investigators, and even Malin noted this. Talked about hte fact that several places in Mars present a clear "stairs"" formation which is very common on Earth. On Earth, land tends to rise and fall into Ocean for very large periods of time. In some places you can see "stairs" (one such case is in California).

    Sixth - the Water Layers - On Arabia Terra water is still flowing. And it seems to have a property of being trapped only in some specific layers. Much the same way as in Earth. For such thing to happen we should take into consideration that the history of these sediments is clearly differentiated. Some hold water others not. So what we have here is not only the demonstration that these sediments could not be formed by volcans or dust (here chemical differentations are mostly insignificant). What we have here is that not only water formed them but that they were formed on different physico-chemical conditions. And probably biological ones.

    But this would also mean that what happened in Mars did not happen 100000000000000000000 years ago...
  • While I agree with you on the order on how science news are published, I can't agree with you on this pecualiar one. Because I have noted that recently pressure started to mount about several things concerning Mars. And this press releas came JUST IN TIME...

    On what concerns these conferences itself. You points are good. But that's not the way NASA has been acting recently. We all know that they speak a lot about "AMAZING", "EXTRAORDINARY", "WE ARE ALL EXCITED" in these things. And it does not sound science. It sounds much more as Marketing PR and people sniffing glue. And which causes serious glitches. Before getting offended pick up that some NASA conference. Like the one about "Life from Mars" and look and listen very well to it. You wanna tell me that these are professional answers? That people are talking in a qualified voice? That they are answering to what reporters ask them? To me it looks much like a press-conference done after a Watergate-like scandal...

    Slashdot people may be too demending. But lots of Slashdotters have not seen one conference but many. And we know that sometimes the quantity of "amazings" and "excitements" of NASA's experts sound much more like "GIVE SOME MORE LSD TO BE MORE EXCITED". Because apart of babling a few facts, stating a pair of fuzzy photos, and presenting two three badly made diagrams, there is no real Science on it. Yeah, frankly. Not all NASA conferences look like this. But some, and SPECIALLY the ones on Mars may look to anything except Science...
  • The water was probably split into loose hydrogen atoms (or protons) and oxygen by solar radiation in the upper atmosphere. The protons drifted off wit hthe solar wind and the oxygen bound to metals in the planet's crust. Water vapour is very heavy, and probably wouldn't escape so easily.

  • Why o' why we spend all these time discovering these stuff on Mars? Should be spend all these resources to improve our Earth first?

    Same logic:

    Why o why are we spending all this time discovering new stuff about AIDS? Shouldn't we spend all these resources to keep healthy people alive first?

    What happened to Mars probably won't happen to Earth, but then again we don't really know what happened to Mars...or to Venus for that matter. If Mars once had life, we'd be able to study the fossils and possibly see just exactly how fragile a planet sized ecosystem really is. To say nothing of just studying it's weather to get a better understanding of what's happening here on this planet.

  • Pictures of Mars (Score:5)

    by Calle Ballz ( 238584 ) on Saturday December 02, 2000 @08:03PM (#586127) Homepage
    I found a link off of www.space.com [space.com] of pictures of some of the evidence [space.com] of oceans on mars. It also has many more interesting pictures.
  • You are not quite correct about the probes lifetimes. A few hours. And one seemed to have last nearly a day. Soviet Union sent nearly nearly 15 probes there.

  • News Happenings (Score:5)

    by bcrowell ( 177657 ) on Saturday December 02, 2000 @08:03PM (#586129) Homepage
    A full announcement is expected next week from NASA -- wouldn't it be nice if they would simply release news as it happens rather than create News Happenings?
    Sounds more like they're doing what reputable scientists normally do -- don't hold a press conference until the paper is published.
  • There are very few chances that the liquid is nothing but water. Water is an universal solvent. A similar one is amonnia but at temperatures much lower than it could be possible on Mars. Second we have data about some of the mineralogical compositions of Mars. Even considering just magmatic rocks we can be sure that we are dealing with water (water also has some important role on their formation). But we also have some sedimentary rocks on Pathfinder's place to show that water also participate in larger geologic processes. So we have a planet that clearly possessed a high temperature during formation, showing rocks with clear traces of water presence, and sedimentary rocks with clear hydrological properties. Who else should be then? Carbon Dioxide. First it is much less reactive. Second the thing is more volatile than water. Third I don't really see a goo presence of it on Mars rocks. In fact, here there seems to exist some sort of dessymetry between atmosphere and surface.

    And note that Mars is not far from the Sun. While this is questionable in some points, some theories talk about the terodynamical layers of the solar system. For example most water is vapour in Mercury/Venus, liquid on Earth/Mars, solid on outer planets. Well, we have Europe showing that things may not be so simple. But still there is some sense on it.

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