Liquid Water on Mars? New Research Indicates Buried 'Lakes' (nbcnews.com) 42
The existence of liquid water on Mars -- one of the more hotly debated matters about our cold, red neighbor -- is looking increasingly likely. From a report: New research published Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy indicates there really is a buried reservoir of super-salty water near the south pole of the planet. Scientists say such a lake would significantly improve the likelihood that the red planet just might harbor microscopic life of its own. Some scientists remain unconvinced that what's been seen is liquid water, but the latest study adds weight to a tentative 2018 finding from radar maps of the planet's crust made by the Mars Express robot orbiter. That research suggested an underground "lake" of liquid water had pooled beneath frozen layers of sediment near the Martian south pole -- akin to the subglacial lakes detected beneath the Antarctic and the Greenland ice sheets on Earth.
Earth's subglacial lakes are teeming with bacterial life, and similar life might survive in liquid reservoirs on Mars, scientists have speculated. "We are much more confident now," said Elena Pettinelli, a professor of geophysics at Italy's Roma Tre University, who led the latest research and the earlier study. "We did many more observations, and we processed the data completely differently." The planetary scientist and her team processed 134 observations of the region near the south pole with ground-penetrating radar from the Mars Express Orbiter between 2012 until 2019 -- more than four times as many as before, and covering a period of time more than twice as long. They then applied a new technique to the observation data that has been used to find lakes beneath the Antarctic ice sheet, as well as an older technique used in the 2018 study. Both methods indicate there is a "patchwork" of buried reservoirs of liquid in the region, Pettinelli said -- a large reservoir about 15 miles across, surrounded by several smaller patches up to 6 miles across.
Earth's subglacial lakes are teeming with bacterial life, and similar life might survive in liquid reservoirs on Mars, scientists have speculated. "We are much more confident now," said Elena Pettinelli, a professor of geophysics at Italy's Roma Tre University, who led the latest research and the earlier study. "We did many more observations, and we processed the data completely differently." The planetary scientist and her team processed 134 observations of the region near the south pole with ground-penetrating radar from the Mars Express Orbiter between 2012 until 2019 -- more than four times as many as before, and covering a period of time more than twice as long. They then applied a new technique to the observation data that has been used to find lakes beneath the Antarctic ice sheet, as well as an older technique used in the 2018 study. Both methods indicate there is a "patchwork" of buried reservoirs of liquid in the region, Pettinelli said -- a large reservoir about 15 miles across, surrounded by several smaller patches up to 6 miles across.
Easy way to fund Mars mission (Score:1)
The initial Mars operations can be funded, by draining one of the underground lakes and bottling it to sell back on earth for $1k a bottle. Produce the battle out of martial soil and you could probably charge $2k...
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I reminded of Ugly Bags of Mostly Water [wikipedia.org] and wonder aloud if that could become the Ganymede Sea Rat [fandom.com], which is to say and alien life form becoming part of a conservation effort.
SpaceX and NASA have wildly different visions for Mars, this could determine whether they cooperate or not
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Seeing as how a few milligrams of moon rocks brought almost a million bucks at a 2018 auction, I think a bottle of Mars water will go for a little more than 1 or 2 grand.
...and destroy all "life as we know it" on our planet.
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Life on Mars (Score:2)
Re: Life on Mars (Score:2)
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That assumes evolution is inevitable, rather than itself a product of possibly highly unlikely occurrences.
You can win the lottery the first time you play, but that doesn't make it a remotely normal occurrence.
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Mmm. But over millions of years, eventually the lottery is won. Earth may not even have been the first.
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Yeah, but the odds of winning a lottery may be *MANY* orders of magnitude more likely than the right combination of factors to create life on earth.
For instance, if there are only, say a couple of hundred factors each with a chance of 50% that caused intelligent life to develop on earth, then it would be actually highly unlikely there are even any other planets with intelligent civilizations out there in the entire observable universe and we are just incredibly lucky.
Ultimately, it simply boils down t
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The answer isn't exactly one. In fact, I'm suggesting that it is well possible that the answer might even be less than one (but definitely still greater than zero).
Of course it's also entirely feasible to suggest that the universe could be teeming with intelligent life, but there is no real reason to conclude this is any more likely than the scenario I have provided simply given the vastness of the universe because the chances of such civilizations developing in the first place may well be too small f
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We cannot reasonably draw any kind of conclusion about its likelihood or unlikelihood. We only know that the chances are non zero, because we obviously exist. Even though we exist, however, that does not mean that our chances were ever that good or for that matter even somewhat likely.
So my criticism is against those who feel that they can express with any confidence at all that the sheer vastness of th
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"So my criticism is against those who feel that they can express with any confidence at all that the sheer vastness of the cosmos should give them confidence to say that intelligent life is likely to exist elsewhere,"
There are many that would claim that there is no intelligent life here, either. Be that as it may, the building blocks of life are everywhere, so I'll go with Dr. Malcolm's "Life finds a way". I'm agnostic on whether there's any other "intelligent" life.
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The evolutionary timeline on Earth was very slow to start with. Hundreds of millions years of single cells, before anything like multi-cellular life appeared. There is no guarantee of "progress", whatever that may be.
If extremely salty water on Earth is teeming with life, how come the Dead Sea is, well, dead?
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Because the universe doesn't take nomenclature as literally as you do. [deadsea.com]
*sigh*
Intellectual laziness is a scourge.
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Thank you for that link. I had suspected that the Dead Sea was not actually that dead. However, I think it right to say that it is dead in terms of lacking fish, so I do not think I was being lazy.
I am aware of highly salt-tolerant bacteria, that are used in making fermented foods, such as cheese and sauerkraut. Though I have never tried to make it, all you have to do to get sauerkraut going is add loads of salt to the veg. This kills or inhibits all the unwanted bacteria and yeasts, and leaves the ubiquito
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Have you read The Illuminatus! Trilogy [wikipedia.org]?
They supposed a branch of the tree of life that never divided or spored or cloned or bred.... ever. It had just grown silently alongside all the other teeming life, only appearing at certain plot points.
My half hearted attempt to steal the idea is to suppose that Mars is inhabited by a single, wide spread organism that happens to love briny subsoil?
It's intelligence could be high or nil, or maybe it's scope of awareness is so narrow that Humans showing up will blow its
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If there is bacteria, they will probably find complex creatures with some sort of intelligence (level of a dolphin or shark) in those lakes. My reasoning is that if there is any life at all, the evolutionary process must be taking place.
I highly doubt it.
Even though the Earth has orders of magnitude more habitable zones than Mars, it still went 80% of its entire history before any animals evolved at all. The odds are minuscule that complex life would evolve in a handful of dark salty underground Martian aquifers with almost no available energy sources.
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If there is bacteria, they will probably find complex creatures with some sort of intelligence
Non sequitur. The jump from single-celled organisms to multicellular life is difficult. Dolphins did not exist on Earth until 50Mya. Bacteria have been there for at least 3000Mya.
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If there is bacteria, they will probably find complex creatures with some sort of intelligence (level of a dolphin or shark) in those lakes. My reasoning is that if there is any life at all, the evolutionary process must be taking place.
Life on Earth had several critical stages...
Everything seems to have a common genetic code, though there are other ammonia acids that cod have worked in DNA: so, this probably evolved once.
The evolution of the Eukyrotes is believed to be some to be the merging of two bacterial forms giving a doubled cell wall. This makes them more robust and more efficient. All multicellular life seems to come from these.
It is guessed that there may have been an earlier form before the known Archaea. It is possible t
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The complexity of life in a system is directly related to how much energy is available. Intelligence is expensive. Hell, more than one cell with proper walls is expensive. If its a dark cold underground lake then there wont be much energy in the system. That means any life would be very simplistic. Geothermal can help but we already have an idea of what kind of life geothermal can support and it isn't on the level of Dolphins.
Earth is thriving with life because no only is it warm and safe but because it als
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There's absolutely no reason to expect that Martian subglacial lakes have life that's more complex than similar environments on Earth, which are inhabited by single-celled organisms. Some types of worms or even tardigrades could in theory survive in such a lake but haven't been seen so far. Vertebrates, not a chance. On Mars there would be even less in terms of energy input and no surface ecosystem where more complex lifeforms could evolve and potentially migrate below, even if the super-salty water can sup
Venus (Score:2)
That's cool, but Venus is hotter.
It has metallic snow. Lava lakes (maybe, or something else?). Phosphine in the atmosphere. Why aren't we exploring it too?
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That's cool, but Venus is hotter.
It has metallic snow. Lava lakes (maybe, or something else?). Phosphine in the atmosphere. Why aren't we exploring it too?
And setting up a colony, New Scottsdale. It would have the baddest HOA in the solar system.
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And the Venus Soapstone is the best detergent in the solar system, you can just pick it up off the ground.
BUY A TICKET TODAY!!!
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"My parents went to Venus and all I got is this stupid spacesuit"
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"We", as humanity, are exploring Venus. The Russkiys tend to do better with Venus, and the Yankees tend to do better with Mars.
That's a new one, blue sky on Mars (Score:2)
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Actually, on a clear day, the martian sky could in fact appear entirely blue, due to Rayleigh light scattering, the same reason that the sky is blue here on earth,
It's primarily dust in the air that will make it appear red.
Well crap. (Score:2)
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I'd bet dollars and doughnuts that these locations (and say hundreds of kilometers around them just went on a planetary protection no-go-zone list.
These locations are buried under ~1 km of ice. They are pretty well protected.
"buried"? Not likely. (Score:1)
Underground lakes? Yeah, seems like there is some evidence for that, but "buried"? Not likely.
Obviously (Score:1)
Known since at least April 1, 2005 (Score:2)
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+1 informational.
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What did I just see there? (Score:2)
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Thick as a Brick.