NASA Says Mars Once "Drenched With Water"

NASA is currently holding a press conference (carried live on NASA TV) where they are discussing findings from the Mars rovers. They are saying that the crater that the second rover has landed in has convincing evidence that it was once drenched or covered in liquid water. They cite the tiny spherules, odd holes in the rocks, sulfur in the spectrometric analyses, and evidence of an iron sulfate hydrate (a hydrate is a chemical compound which includes water molecules in the crystal lattice). Update: 03/02 19:45 GMT by M : CNN has a story, or see the NASA press release.

So much...

[i.r.id10t]

... for CowboyNeil saving money on his auto insurance...

and this couldn't have come sooner?

[chrisopherpace]

I wanted my free shrimp from Long John Silvers! Damn! Info Here [longjohnsilvers.com]

Re:Key point

[Anonymous Coward]

> sedimentary rocks are going to have fossils. ... and fossils means fuel, which in turn means they must have WMDs.

I for one

[Piethon]

Welcome our tiny bacterial martian overlords

gun jumping

[kippy]

I love how this story was posted during the opening remarks of the press conference before they could go into much detail.

So how long before...

[The Ancients]

Some creative company wants to find, and market this 'untouched natural' water?

Geek planet alright

[AndroidCat]

So Mars haven't taken a bath or shower in ages. No wonder they're finding crusty salt brine residue.

"...and then...

[mark0]

"... the lense on the camera got really fogged up. That's when we really got suspicious."

Re:Key point

[webtre]

If those rocks are sedimentary, there must have been water to carry sediment (unless some bored alien teenager did something weird).

NASA Says Mars Once "Drenched With Water"

[Anonymous Coward]

There you have it folks.. proof not only that the Great Flood happened, and what's more, god made it flood all the way to Mars!

Noah's lucky he didn't get stranded! ;-)

There's water, maybe there's life

[lavalyn]

And then there are fossils. Which means the next NASA mission will be funded by Halliburton after all.

Re:Key point

[mark-t]

sedimentary rocks are going to have fossils. ... and fossils means fuel, which in turn means they must have WMDs.

Right... and fossil fuels mean more greenhouse gasses, which causes the temperature to rise...

Egad!!! We may have just found a way to teraform mars! ;)

Ahh! Now you've done it!

[BigZaphod]

You're gonna slashdot NASA TV now, dammit! I fully expect my satellite feed to start stuttering and flashing to black in a few minutes...

You spend $100 billion...

[Ga_101]

To equip 2 Rovers with the best water detecting equipment known to man and how do you find water?

You get mud stuck to the tyres!

But in all seriosness, Good on NASA.
But it certainly makes a more life seeking mission like beagle 2 all the more important.

Re:woohoo

[Xeed]

Well, I think you were forgetting about the whole alien overtone. Also, the water isn't there anymore. They are still looking for the big alien device to bring it all back.

Also, I'm voting for Arnold when he runs for King of Mars. I'd like him to fix the drought.

Fossil fuels?

[MAXOMENOS]

This would be great news for the space program, as Bush would make the invasion and conquest of Mars a national priority.

A la Steve Jobs

[gfilion]

and at the end of the conference, they'll pretend that it's over and say:
and one more thing... we found life on Mars!

Re:Finally.. an end to religion

[Fjord]

Actually, an ellipsis usually has three periods. An ellipse is usually a conic section whose plane is not parallel to the axis, base, or generatrix of the intersected cone.

Re:Finally.. an end to religion

[Stinky Eastwood]

So can I marry a Martian microbe? The bible doesn't specifically prohibit that does it? Where does our president stand on this issue?

Re:Finally.. an end to religion

[MAXOMENOS]

My religion can, but it depends on entirely different myths.

Re:and this couldn't have come sooner?

[Kenja]

But God hates shrimp! [godhatesshrimp.com]

Re:Where did it go?

[xeaxes]

Rent the movie Spaceballs. It explains how to move water and other features from one planet to another.

Oil point

[Anonymous Coward]

> sedimentary rocks are going to have fossils. ... and fossils means fuel, which in turn means they must have WMDs.

Oh, no! Bush is going to liberate Mars!!

Yeah

[Greyfox]

Before they even got to the good bits about the Ewoks...

Men are from Mars

[Fragmented_Datagram]

Oooh... so maybe humans were originally on Mars... and they screwed up their planet with pollution, overuse of resources, etc., but managed to transport a few people to Earth to start over...
And maybe we'll look to terraform Mars and move there once we've hosed this planet too. The cycle continues...
Heh... yeah. Anyway, back to work now.

Re:So much...

[grub]

if you would read slashdot more

That would only be possible if we were on Mars with those longer Martian days.

It's a conspiracy!

[Thud457]

Obviously NASA knew this earlier, and held back their findings in deference to the all-powerful fast-food seafood lobby!!!

Re:There's water, maybe there's life

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, it means that the U.S. gov will fund the next mission and than award Haliburton a contract outright with no bidding.

Re:I called it!

[gfxguy]

Want some cheese with that whine?

If I Recall correctly...

[jabber01]

It's burried in huge subterranean (submartian?) cavens. These are all interconnected. Then there's this huge nuclear reactor, which if turned on, will terraform the surface in less time than it would take the governor of California to suffocate in the present Martian atmosphere.

Re:and this couldn't have come sooner?

[Perdurabo26]

Heathen!
http://godhatesshrimp.com/

Re:Key point

[marktoml]

>Right... and fossil fuels mean more greenhouse
>gasses, which causes the temperature to rise...

>Egad!!! We may have just found a way to teraform
> mars! ;)

We're still working on Earth.

Re:Key point

[Narcissus]

Oh I love being able to set a caption from within the URL [space.com]!

It's time to crash the moon into mars!

[Dutchmaan]

Add some mass to the planet for added gravtiy, massive heat increase to melt the ice caps and creat liquid water...

Make it pay per view to keep it profitable!

We can call it a Weapon of Mass Creation!

WE CAN'T LOSE!

Now just add water...

[tommasz]

...and your Sea Monkeys (tm) will come to life!

Re:Ahh! Now you've done it!

[Zathrus]

Well, if you believe the ads run by cable companies then the mere mention of water should cause your signal to go out.

Re:So how long before...

[advocate_one]

Ask Coca Cola [washingtontimes.com]... ;) I'll let someone else post this story properly... but our tap water is "the Real Thing"!!!

Re:LINK VOTES FOR YOU

[3waygeek]

The grandparent poster must work for Diebold.

Re:Fossil fuels?

[taped2thedesk]

This would be great news for the space program, as Bush would make the invasion and conquest of Mars a national priority.

That's the liberation of Mars, you insensitive clod!

Profit?

[RedShoeRider]

1) Water on Mars
2) ???
3) Life on Mars
4) Profit!

Marvin's going to be awfully mad when we come there to drill for oil.

Re:Where did it go?

[mackinaugh]

Actually, I watched this documentary once with Arnold Schwarzenegger where they showed where all the water is. It's in giant ice blocks in this huge cave. There's also an alien device designed to release it as vapor, thereby creating an atmosphere on Mars.

Re:Fossil fuels?

[metalix]

This would be great news for the space program, as Bush would make the invasion and conquest of Mars a national priority.

Only if the NSA persuaded him that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were hidden there.

I Was Hoping

[jazman_777]

they had found some Spice.

Re:Key point

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA has never lost a human in the sun, therefore a 1.5 year mission to the surface of the sun is perfectly safe as well.

Re:It's time to crash the moon into mars!

[nukem1999]

Can't lose?

A decimal and/or metric conversion error causes the moon to hit Mars at a bad angle, slowing it down significantly. While life is spawned/renewed in the following chaos, Mars slowly spirals towards the Sun. Years later, practically covered with simple organisms, Mars is incinerated. Congratulations, you've just committed genocide!

Of course, if you're REALLY unlucky, Mars could come hit us on the way down to the Sun.

Re:Key point

[Cruciform]

Fossils aren't that rare. If you wait outside a Tom Jones concert a few of them might even hit on you.

Re:Fixing Opportunity after the fact

[System.out.println()]

The costs of shipping a battery to NASA from Mars would not be covered under warranty.

Re:Key point

[ThisIsAnExampleAccou]

Not if you go at night.

Water indicates

[Mixel]

If there was water, there could have been snow. If there was snow, there could have been snowmen. Hence there could have been life.

Steve Squires for President!

Re:It's time to crash the moon into mars!

[PYves]

for some reason your post made me want to play billiards.

Bush allocates additional $5m

[bahwi]

Today President Bush announced an emergency $5million to fund writers for employees at NASA upon hearing their speeches.

Seriously though, very cool. =) But my god people, get WRITERS!

Re:Where did it go?

[aristotle-dude]

You blabbed Quaid. You blabbed about mars. Now we are going to having to kill you. I'm just following Cohagen's orders.

Re:Key point

[happyfrogcow]

so you're saying we should nuke the entire planet first, right?

(kidding!)

"This Moonrock Sponsored by Poland Spring"

[telstar]

I'm still amazed some corporate sponsor didn't get their name on one of those rovers. I'd think some water company would be all over that opportunity.

Coulda saved money

[almightyjustin]

Instead of using all these expensive spectrometers and such, they should have just stuck a dowsing rod onto the front of the rover. I mean, duh.

(j/k)

Re:Key point

[tumbaumba]

...then it's very likely fossils are in sedimentary rocks...

I wander about religious implications of finding fossils or hopefully even life on Mars. I can imagine all sorts of new funny religions popping up as a result of this. Any of religious nuts want to comment on this?

Re:"This Moonrock Sponsored by Poland Spring"

[El]

If the Mars Rovers find Moon rocks -- that would be an amazing discovery!

Re:Key point

[bl8n8r]

> first forms of life on earth were colloidal clay > organisms Mister Bill perhaps? Oh No!

Re:Key point

[bl8n8r]

> No Manned Missions should be sent to Mars until we
> are reasoably certain that no life presently
> exists on the Red Planet.

Shit..you watch too much tv.. if there was anything to worry about, Spirit and Opportunity would have been fazered to death by Klingon war patrols already. Anyone knows that. Send the Astronauts!!

Re:Key point

[Stephen Samuel]

Not if you go at night.

I presume you mean especially if you go at night..

Re:Coulda saved money

[KnightStalker]

Coulda save A LOT of money! That technique would be just as effective from Earth. Just point your dowsing rod in approximately the direction of Mars! (Of course, that's not very high-resolution.)

Re:Key point

[Anonymous Coward]

fyad fyad lol

Re:Key point

[Zack]

Of course, if you want to get REALLY technical, the only thing anyone can prove is that they exist. Cogito Ergo Sum. I think therefore I am. It runs like this:

I am having thought. I know I am having thoughts. Therefore something must be having these thoughts and I will call this "I". Thefore "I" exists. Beyond that you can't _prove_ anything else. It might be the matrix for all you know.

But no one likes to get that technical.

Re:Key point

[damien_kane]

You *can't* prove a negative.

Prove it...

Speaking of Terraforming...

[Dread_ed]

I am really tired of people "looking for life on (insert planet/moon name here)." If it can't jump up and say "Howdy!", prance around in a skipmy outfit like that Vulcan chick from Enterprise, or shoot a ray-gun with a tentacled appendage, who cares! Evolution is king, baby: let's not coddle those weak little Martian organisms. If they can't handle the competetion with some strapping Earth-born organisms...fuck em!

Think about how long it takes to terraform a planet. Shouldn't we have started by now? It's past time to seed some plants to eat the carbon dioxide, release some oxygen and let them begin digging the water out of the earth and releasing it into the atmosphere.

Speaking of plants, I wonder if tossing cactus/sensamilla seeds out of a baloon bourne lander would be a good way of finding water. Those plants are pretty hardy, and anywhere the plants start to grow would potentially have water sources near the surface. I bet I could devise some wicked experiments to carry out on Mars with plants that were modified genetically to withstand the harsher conditions.

If only the scientific community would grow some gonads we would have a great decade of science and experimentiton ahead of us.

What is the matter officer? I have obeyed all of your silly Earth laws!

Where's

[Kelz]

the SPICE!

Re:What I want to know is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Rabbit thing

Frank was here...
went to get beer.

RTG's are Perfectly Safe

[whig]

"In fact it's perfectly safe," said one of the officials,
"it's built so that even if the ship does break up, the
storage holds cannot possibly be breached."

Young Zaphod Plays It Safe

Re:What I want to know is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

it was a dust bunny.

Re:What I want to know is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the easter bunny.

You don't think he hides on Earth 364 day a year do you?