"Definitive Evidence" For Ancient Lake On Mars 102
TheSync writes "Eurekalert reports on 'definitive evidence' for an ancient water lake on Mars. A UC Boulder research team has discovered evidence of a shoreline on Mars of a 3 billion year-old lake 80 square miles in area and 1,500 feet deep (roughly the equivalent of Lake Champlain). Images came from the HiRISE instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Water carved a 30-mile-long canyon that opened up into a valley and forming a large delta during a time when Mars is generally believed to have been cold and dry. The lack of additional, lower shorelines, shows that the lake dried up very quickly. Of particular interest are the deltas adjacent to the lake. On Earth, deltas rapidly bury organic carbon and other biomarkers of life, making the Martian lake bed and delta a prime target for future searches for past life on the planet."
Re:NASA has been hiding life on Mars for years (Score:2, Informative)
Re:NASA has been hiding life on Mars for years (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sweet pics (Score:5, Informative)
Seriously, wouldn't it be neat if there was new evidence of water on Mars based on hi res pictures and someone would actually link to said pictures? That would be neat-o.
Don't get me wrong, Defrosting Spots Over Polygonal Ground sounds interesting and all, but...
Here you go, on the NASA site since 2003:
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2003/nov/HQ_03364_MGS_delta.html [nasa.gov]
It is CU Boulder not UC Boulder (Score:1, Informative)
Translation to standard units (Score:2, Informative)
UC Boulder (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Lake champlain? (Score:3, Informative)
I believe they were talking about volume, though they didn't specify.
Champlain is 30% larger than this lake by volume, but this lake is about 80% the size of Champlain by volume. Using the second figure, with a bit of hyperbole you can say "roughly equivalent". They like to do that kind of crap when describing stuff on Mars and other earth-ish sized solar and planetary satellites.
Not the most accurate description, but it gives a rough idea of volume at least.