Water Flowed Recently on Mars 411
elfguygmail.com writes "According to to Space.com 'Small gullies on Mars were carved by water recently and would be prime locations to look for life, NASA scientists said today.' "
Don't panic.
How recently? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How recently? (Score:2)
Re:How recently? (Score:2, Interesting)
The new study suggests water may still bubble to the surface of Mars now and then, flow for a short stretch, then boil away in the thin, cold air.
That would seem to suggest that "recently" may well be right at this moment.
Re:How recently? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How recently? (Score:3, Funny)
So when my boss says I'll get a raise "soon", then he too, must be thinking in geologic terms. That would certainly explain a lot - I just thought he didn't want to give me a raise; I didn't consider that we might be using two different timelines...:)
Re:How recently? (Score:2)
The gullies may be sites of near-surface water on present-day Mars and should be considered as prime astrobiological target sites for future exploration," said Jennifer Heldmann.
I asked myself the same question. Recently as in the last 100 centuries, or 100 days? I take the above quote to mean the latter.
Re:How recently? (Score:3, Funny)
Your plane and/or train.
To answer your question.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I dont know. I find it frustrating that the article provides just about no details. However, I did a quick Google search, and came up with this:
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/june2000/ [msss.com]
And:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/ mars_ice_signs_010614.html [space.com]
The first page is dated in the year 2000! I wonder if this is really news after all! The second page is dated 2001. It states basically the same thing as the article the submitter linked to, however it says how long ago "recent" is--10,000,000 years!!
Re:To answer your question.... (Score:5, Funny)
If 10,000,000 is "recent", then 2005 vs 2000 is still breaking news.
Re:How recently? (Score:2)
-matthew
Article Text (Score:5, Informative)
By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
posted: 24 August 2005
07:57 pm ET
Small gullies on Mars were carved by water recently and would be prime locations to look for life, NASA scientists said today.
There have been many studies of Martian gullies that concluded water was involved. But most of the features are ancient, or if they seemed modern then there were questions about how the water could stay liquid long enough to do the carving.
Scientists know there is a lot of water ice on Mars, locked up at the poles and beneath the surface elsewhere.
Water is a key ingredient for life as we know it, and other scientists have speculated that life on Mars, if there is any, could lurk just beneath the surface where ice melts in pockets.
A closer look
The new study suggests water may still bubble to the surface of Mars now and then, flow for a short stretch, then boil away in the thin, cold air.
The conclusion is based on computer modeling of the atmosphere and how water would behave.
"The gullies may be sites of near-surface water on present-day Mars and should be considered as prime astrobiological target sites for future exploration," said Jennifer Heldmann, the lead researcher from NASA's Ames Research Center. "The gully sites may also be of prime importance for human exploration of Mars because they may represent locations of relatively near surface liquid water, which can be accessed by crews drilling on the red planet."
Any potential long-term human presence on Mars would require a water source, both for drinking and to be broken down into hydrogen as fuel for return flights.
The claim that water carved the gullies is based on the shape and size of features spotted by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor.
Short gullies
"If liquid water pops out onto Mars' surface, it can create short gullies about 550-yards (500-meters) long," Heldmann said in a statement. "We find that the short length of the gully features implies they did form under conditions similar to those on present-day Mars, with simultaneous freezing and rapid evaporation of nearly pure liquid water."
Some of the gullies taper off into very small debris fields or leave no debris at all. That implies the water rapidly froze or evaporated.
Given the low air pressure on Mars, water would boil in a flash, the researchers say, so it is doubtful that ice accumulates in the gullies.
The findings will be presented next month at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences in Cambridge, England.
Obligatory (Score:2)
Documentary (Score:3, Funny)
New food for thought (Score:5, Insightful)
I was a little disappointed to find no mention in TFA about what they meant by "recently". 1 year? 5? 10? 100? 1000? 10K?
Many will be thinking, water == life!. Let's say this improves the possibility, but if most water on Mars is (and especially, was) mostly locked up as ice and/or only very ephemerally available, then I'd say it's much less likely that the "long shot" of evolution that led to our existence on Earth could have taken place similarly on Mars. Our planet spent millions of years two-thirds covered in water and under a dense methane-ammonia atmosphere. In contrast, it seems Mars had far less soup under far less atmosphere at (average) somewhat lower temperatures. I guess the only thing Mars might have had more of, sans an atmosphere of effective sunscreens, is ionizing (and hence mutagenic) radiation.
Re:New food for thought (Score:3, Interesting)
I hate to disabuse you, but you're out by a couple of orders of magnitude. 10 million years is considered "recent" in the context of Martian geology and landscape morphology. Nothing much is thought to have happened (except in the sense of very slow processes, such as air-borne dust particle erosion, the occasional impact and periodic outbursts of sub-surface ice as water which immedia
Martian Spring (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Martian Spring (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Martian Spring (Score:2)
Likely For Life If (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Likely For Life If (Score:2, Interesting)
More likely in caves (Score:5, Interesting)
Why caves? Two reasons:
I agree that continuing to explore the surface won't lead to much, but there's probably lots of interesting stuff in caves.
Someone inform me? (Score:2)
Ok, if they said liquid hydrogen, or some other such substance I could understand. But why would water boil in cold air, even thin air? First I didn't know Mars had air. Second we have thin air - go to some of the highest peaks on our planet - water does not boil - in fact it should be frozen.
So would someone explain?
Re:Someone inform me? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Someone inform me? (Score:3, Informative)
The boiling point of any liquid is a function of both pressure and temperature, a point which you yourself seemed to make later in your post. Check out this article on phase transitions [wikipedia.org] for more technical discussion. (For yet more info, follow the link in the article pertaining to critical points.)
It's entirely possible for three material phases (solid, liquid, gas) to exist simultaneously for a given substance if you have
Re:Someone inform me? (Score:2)
Thin vs THIN (Score:3, Informative)
The Martian atmosphere is much thinner than earth's, even at the highest peaks. I think the air pressure at Mt Everest is about 20% of sealevel, while on Mars it is 0.1%.
I don't have the numbers here, but I assume the physical foundation for this story is that at that pressure, the boiling temperature is below the fr
Re:Someone inform me? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Someone inform me? (Score:3, Informative)
Or, to think of it another way, the state of matter is a function of how much it gets pushed together. H20 is liquid until it has enough energy for the molecules moving around in
Re:Someone inform me? (Score:2)
Also, remember that water turns to a vapor even around its freezing point. Evaporating at cold temperatures isn't out of the ordinary. It seems like an everyday substance to us, but water is incredibly unusual, especially in terms of its volatility.
Re:Someone inform me? (Score:3, Interesting)
Mars definitely does have an atmosphere, check
Re:Someone inform me? (Score:3, Informative)
Not sure where you're getting your numbers from, but that's almost certainly wrong. According to this article [wikipedia.org]:
So if the boiling point of water is 69 degrees Celsius at 2
Must be me (Score:5, Insightful)
The conclusion is based on computer modeling of the atmosphere and how water would behave
In other words "Nothing for you to see here, move along".
In related news.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:In related news.... (Score:2)
Here's the key that noone is thinking about (Score:2, Insightful)
What about life as we do NOT know it?
Most humans are either too ignorant (not stupid) or too arrogant, and think that the only way an organism can 'live' anywhere must be by our own standards as seen on Earth.
We cannot possibly begin to understand or speculate 'that' which we cannot comprehend. Hu
Re:Here's the key that noone is thinking about (Score:3, Insightful)
Science (Score:2)
I couldn't care less about life on Mars. (Score:2)
Of course if I'd happen to see some crashed alien spaceship, I'd just move along, dropping a few pyromaniacs to enjoy their time
HUGE IMPACT (Score:3, Insightful)
Many religious beliefs would be decimated
Discovery of amoebas on other planets wouldn't necessarily have a big impact on world religions. On the other hand, discovery of intelligent beings on other planets would have a HUGE impact on earth religions, especially if those beings had their own religions or ideas about religion that we could compare and contrast with ours.
For example, let's say that the aliens also had a religion based around Jesus. That would lend a lot of credibility to Christianity. Or suppose they were very advanced aliens with far superior knowledge of the universe and science, and they told us that all of our religions were superstitious rubbish. I think that would affect a lot of people's beliefs as well.
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:5, Insightful)
" The crucial biomolecules of life - such as amino acids, RNA and DNA - are chiral. In order for these polymeric molecules to replicate themselves, their individual components have to be of one kind, either right- or left-handed.
"It is generally agreed that you need homochirality - either all left-handed or all right-handed - for life to get off the ground," Bonner said. "Therefore, a preponderance of one handedness must have evolved in prebiotic times."
The scientists, however, cannot explain how this happened because they have never succeeded in creating chiral molecules of only one kind in laboratory experiments that simulated prebiotic conditions.
Since chiral molecules are necessary to breed new chiral molecules, how did the first ones come about? "
from http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/pr/93/930210Arc
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately, there's a good chance that "life on Mars" is just "life on Earth that migrated to Mars". Many years ago, I remember listening to a scientist who was absolutely certain that we'd find microscopic life on Mars. His reasoning was that with all the ejecta shot into space from Asteroids and other natural phenomena, there *must* be some Earth life that managed to make it to Mars.
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:5, Insightful)
because Mars has a lower escape velocity than the Earth. So its easier to throw rock from the surface of Mars to Earth than visa versa.
Ian
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:5, Insightful)
There is also the possibility that life on Earth is just life that migrated from Mars.
Perhaps at one time the very beginnings of life were on Mars but due to its conditions the life couldn't sustain itself. However, with all the ejecta shot into space from impacts the life found a very comfy and hospitable home here on this blue planet.
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, that's one of the exciting things the data will tell us! If the genetic code is the same, then we know life didn't evolve seprately - by one means or another it migrated from one place or the other.
If Martian genetics is built off of molecules other than U/TAGC, then we know for sure that it evolved seperately in both places (and that there are multiple building blocks that work, which would be an interesting discovery in its own right).
If the chemicals are the same but the code is different, then that probably means independent evolution, but if there's some similarity scientists can argue about it for centuries! Won't that be entertaining?
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:3, Insightful)
Note that the discussion never centers on the potential earth-destroying dangers. What if we find Martian life, and the first sound we hear from it is "Juffo-Wup fills in my fibers, and I grow turgid"?
We hunams are too curious for our own good!
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:2, Insightful)
From the standpoint of the suns gravitational field, the reverse is far more likely.
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:3, Insightful)
What life could survive a meteorite? Spores maybe or a protein -- a virus is unlikely as that isn't necessarily alive -- it requires higher organisms to replicate. My own theory is that viruses are protein signals that aren't correctly "turned off". That's another topic, however.
Life could have originated on Mars and spread to Earth.
Earth life could have spread to Mars (note, that the Moon is considered part of a massive ejecta from E
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd say it would be the biggest discovery in recorded history. I'm not trying to belittle the significance of Atomic or Quantum physics, but lets step back and look at this.
If extra-terrestrial life were discovered, on Mars, or elsewhere, and there was solid proof for it, it would change the entire world. Many religious beliefs would be decimated, many scientific theories would be challenged or completely re-written, we would know that we are not alone in the universe, that we are an even more insignificant part of it that we already think we are, and importantly it would give a huge boost to those who want to see space exploration in our future.
It would have a profound effect upon every human on this planet... what could be bigger than answering one of our greatest questions about existance of life in our known universe?
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:3, Insightful)
It won't happen. Say, the Earth
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:3, Insightful)
name one.
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:2)
I for one welcome our new in soviet russia aliens.
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:2, Insightful)
Many religious beliefs would be decimated
That's hardly a significant achievement. There aren't any that haven't been decimated.
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:2)
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:5, Insightful)
If God can create one world, and all life on it, why not others? Just because Scripture is silent about life elsewhere in the universe doesn't mean it doesn't exist, only that it has nothing to do with His plan for Earth.
Blind militant atheism is as bad as blind militant fundamentalism. Open your eyes.
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:3, Insightful)
Number of religions I do not believe in = N
Number of religions you do not believe in = N-1
Given the known large value of N, what's the difference in the long run?
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:5, Insightful)
I could go on and on listing atheist rulers and the attrocities they committed in the 20th century but I would hope you get the point by now.
I'm sick and tired of this blind hatred and bigotry towards religion on slashdot as well as the ignorance of our common history. This anti-religious zealotry and often quoted sterotypes is just as bad as racism and racial stereotypes. You fear what you do not understand.
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:2)
Can you cite any passages from Judeo-Christian or Islamic holy scriptures that says that God did not create more than one world containing life? I've seen sec-fundies bring up this argument time and time again, but I've never seen anything to back it up.
In fact, in the Judeo-Christian scriptures (which I am more familiar
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:3, Funny)
Who the hell do you think you are?
my religion would be confirmed by such a discovery (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, you do realise that ad hominem arguments are rather obvious fallacies? The AC hadn't even brought his personal beliefs - which, after all, were irrelevant to the discussion - into the matter. You really shouldn't try to attack people for their beliefs before you even give them a chance to state them.
As for the actual question: The Bible doesn't concern itself with the physical space that lies beyond the Earth, for reasons that should be obvious to both believers and non-believers. The book was written before its intended audience had any idea that such a space existed in as concrete a form as we now know it does.
From a secular viewpoint, this means that the people who wrote it couldn't discuss concepts that were conceived after their deaths.
From a Judeo-Christian viewpoint, it means that the existence of planets beyond our own would be a silly thing for a god to talk about to the human race. While I'm not very well versed in theology, I think it's safe to say that the Judeo-Christian god tends not to concern himself with scientific discoveries past, present or future, but rather with moral codes and prophecies of the future of humanity(in both the physical and the metaphysical spheres).
As far as I know, the idea that Christianity and extraterrestrial life are incompatible is a myth. (Christianity, of course, would hold that God, being all-seeing and all-powerful, is also the god that ultimately was the creator of whatever other planets and creatures that may exist - but this is not logically incompatible with the rest of the set of beliefs.) It may not have been so at one time - I daresay that Christianity at the time of Copernicus was generally hostile to all kinds of astronomy - but I've yet to find a single Christian who thinks that extraterrestrial life would invalidate his or her beliefs, and the Christianity of the present, like it or not, is defined by the beliefs of those who currently consider themselves Christians.
As for your closing paragraph: while a case can be made for the Marxist view of organised religion, you are approaching it far too naïvely. Saying that it was created for one thing only is simplifying the issue. Even from a thoroughly anti-religious point of view, you'll have to agree that religion throughout history has - to take a stunningly arbitrary example - provided comfort to believers who otherwise would have felt trapped in a world they had no chance of understanding, therefore causing them to cling to it. You can't simplify religion - or even superstition, which religion is indistinguishable from from a materialist viewpoint - down to a conspiracy theory.
(You can try, of course, but then you'll be playing "make believe" without even asserting that you have felt a supernatural influence - which is logically provably silly.)
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:3, Insightful)
That all depends on how you interpret the Hebrew shemim, which is clearly plural, implying that there is more than one heaven. The presence of the definite article is inconsequential in whether or not there were more than one of them, and in determining whether there are other earths created in the heavens.
Of course since such semantics is rather irrelevant since the heavens are interpreted in Genesis as being made out of water (why the sky is blue)
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:2)
Would they? Which ones?
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:2)
Or multiplied [scientology.org]... who knows?
But frankly, I doubt organized religions will change a bit. i.e. the Catholic Church hasn't said anything about extraterrestrial life existing or not...
But i'm certainly more interested on the KIND of genetic structure these microorganisms would have. Will it be DNA? Or something else?
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the beliefs would just evolve to accomodate (or deny) the new discoveries like they always do.
You see, once there's a sudden change in the culture and the current belief system becomes unfit to propogate around the population, new amendments are inserted more-or-less randomly into the belief structure and whichever mutations are most fit to attract the greatest number of believers will become the basis for future generations of the religion.
This ability to adapt is really the cornerstone for modern day religion. It also provides us with a wide diversity and complexity of belief systems, yet which all have striking similarities.
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:5, Funny)
Reduced by one tenth? Probably so.
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:2)
We have a couple mountains of evidence favoring evolution and still people want to teach creationism on schools...
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:2, Insightful)
Despite what i think it's all incredibly subjective anyhow.
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:2, Funny)
We are going to Mars to find a bunch of left handed homos?
Hot Mars Lesbian pOrn would be good; it could help pay for the spacefreight on the Mars Bottled Water. (Hey, is that any less dumb than importing it from France?)
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:2, Interesting)
Once self-propagating chemical systems form, they are likely to produce chemicals of the same chirality. Fast-forward a billion years, and the various chemicals that remain naturally occurring on Earth are all of
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:5, Informative)
The "radiation" theory is interesting, but I find a much simpler theory quite sufficient: two dimensional boundary interfaces. Picture that, say, you have some organic molecule forming on top of a grain of quartz sand underwater. There are different forces acting on one side of the assembly site than the other. The side that forms next to the water will not be likely to form in the same shape as the side that forms near the quartz.
Boundary interfaces abound in the universe - almost every joint between grains in almost every rock, from the surfaces of those rocks, from organic deposits, to liquids and gasses. If a certain substrate acts as a catalyst for forming a given molecule, and the molecule is rarely formed otherwise, it's only natural to expect that chiral form to come into play. Once the more dominant form is incorporated into a lifeform, it is "locked in" - more of that form will be created to help the lifecycle, while the other form won't be renewed.
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:5, Insightful)
While a manned mission would be nice, I doubt that the public is ready to accept the risk and cost of such a trip, especially given the recent Shuttle problems. I hear people grumble about the amount of money being "wasted" on space as it is. That says to me that unless scientists can give people a strong reason to explore space (e.g. positive discovery of life on Mars), it's unlikely that there will be much support for a manned mission to Mars.
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:3, Insightful)
Why?
Because if we know there are even a few cells living off of Earth that there is just such a vast expanse to the Universe that this would mean life was everywhere.
While it seems completely logical life would be everywhere, without the proof of it somewhere else, we just don't know.
With how many galaxies there are out there, and knowing life is so common that a planet right next to us also has it, it changes
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey, don't knock it. If it wasn't for the humble Thermus Aquaticus and other extremophiles, we wouldn't have half the knowledge of DNA that we do and PCR-based techniques would be impossible. We won't know the uses for Martian bacteria, let alone something as large as whole cells are until we know what mechanisms they employ to survive.
Of course, trying to explai
Change the Channel (Score:2)
Re:Move on NASA! (10 percenter) (Score:5, Interesting)
Which part of you, the stupid part or the apathetic part? (I realize this comment may get moderators panties in a bunch, but it had to be said)
I'm not flaming, rather frustrated. I mean if we already *know* (or have a strong feeling) there is water/ ice on Mars, then lets get the plans going for a Manned space mission in-the-works. They need to excite the public, not continue the ho-hum exploration for the elusive "Martian Single-Cell Alien." The public wants Buck Rogers or Star Trek, not another Mars rover. Bleh!
Then why don't you go watch MTV or E! or other drivel that can just barely keep you interested for the entirety of your 2 minute attention span. Yeah, let's not have another Mars rover, one of the most fantastic scientific achievements in space exploration in recent history. I am not even going to go into WHY that was such an amazing feat, it would be lost on you.
Your attitude is part of the problem with this country. I am starting to believe that old myth that some people only use 10% of their brains.
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:2)
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:2)
The microscopic kind that worm their way through the seals on an astronaut's space suit and feeds off living human flesh.
So yeah... Might be worth checking before leaving the air lock.
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:3, Insightful)
Dude, if we find any form of life which developed/survived anywhere but Earth do you have any idea of how big of an absolute revelation/breakthrough that would be?
Because if you find even just that elusive "Martian Single-Cell Alien" the likelihod there could, in fact, be Buck Rogers out there somewhere goes way up. It would demonstrate that the Earth wasn't uni
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:2)
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:2)
I was tired of it when it started. I think it's just a dodge for the media networks to get ratings, for NASA to get a bigger slice of tax dollars, and for people looking for fuel in the creation vs. evolution debate.
If it was science, they'd do the work, and then tell whether they found anything significant. And if they did, then the world would care. Instead, the media are HOPING they'll find something, and talking up the significance
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:5, Insightful)
All that is true, but you forget the fact that the necessity for those technologies would spur research and development in those areas. That could mean vastly improved efficiency in how we live on Earth. The problem is motivating people to strive for that goal which also requires moving them past short-sighted views on how we need to "learn how to live on earth first."
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:2)
The reason to go there:
Research
Resource collection
Improve transporting technology (i.e. in case Earth might get hit by an asteroid, lets get the hell out of here)
There are many benefits. In
Re:Move on NASA! (Score:3, Insightful)
TFA isn't about "shared feelings", it's about interplanetary life and biological science. I read at 3, and don't particularly like to have to sift through comments of people who just don't like the topic. Who's forcing them to read it???
Re:Smallest write-up ever? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Slashdot Frequently Seen Characters (Score:5, Funny)
7. After that, another group will come in, pointing out the pointlessness of the above group's post, in posts that are, if possible, even more pointless and off topic. But then, just before the end of their posts, this last group will throw in some almost-related-to-the-topic bit, like "maybe it was glaciers!", so that they can preted that their post was in fact on-topic.
oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy (Score:2)
Read the first reply to the parent post again.
Re:Slashdot Frequently Seen Characters (Score:2)
Re:Slashdot Frequently Seen Characters (Score:2)
Re:Slashdot Frequently Seen Characters (Score:2)
6. The characters who were promised, PROMISED flying cars and interplanetary travel for everyone by the year 2000 and are still waiting for it.
7. ???
8. Profit!
Re:Slashdot Frequently Seen Characters (Score:5, Funny)
However, that sort of thing costs money, and we have people starving in our own streets! We need to take care of our imediate needs first.
And yes, it's true that we have things like microwave ovens, teflon, and the 4-day work week today because of the tireless efforts of NASA...
What was the article about again?
Re:Slashdot Frequently Seen Characters (Score:2)
Save the planet and create a newly habitable one at the same time. :-D
Re:What about climate ? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What about climate ? (Score:2, Informative)
So, based on that alone, no the climate would not sustains humans. On parts of Mars, the day-time temps can reach ~20C, but the night-time is still too cold for life. Also, the atmosphere is only ~0.1% oxygen, compared to ~21% on Earth, and ~95% carbon dioxide compared to Earth's So bottom line is... glass domes!
Well.. (Score:2)
Its one of the ugliest sites in the world
That's okay. In Space, no one can hear you scream.