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Mars Channels Discovered; Possible Aquatic Origin

Posted by timothy on from the but-no-one-can-#kick-you-out- dept.

Carey Frey writes " CNN reported today that 'NASA scientists have uncovered evidence of wide, ancient channels that could have formed from the flow of enormous volumes of water.' The movie Mission to Mars opens tonight. I suppose this is all just a coincidence?"

Yeah, right. The production crew spent literally weeks planning the trip, getting to Mars and digging all those channels. "Coincidence," indeed!

3 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. The channels are *underground* by Signail11 · · Score: 5

    The NASA scientists use a laser-based system to detect fluctuations in the surface conditions that enable them to infer the existence of very large underground channels that could have been created by vast flows of water when Mars was much younger. As importantly, the information confirms that Mars used to be in a state of great geologic upheval, as demonstrated by the enormous latent volcanoes on the surface.

    Very interesting article; this much water on a planet creates the prospect that life may have one day existed on Mars. Also, I think I might be pretty close to a first post. Oh well.

  2. More headlines from previous centuries.... by emerson · · Score: 5

    In addition to the discovery of channels on Mars, previously called 'canals,' the following headlines began to appear....

    -- Scientists detect existance of 'eathre,' previously called 'aether;' now known to be the medium in which the Planck-sized subspace foam floats.

    -- Observatory locates giant space dragon living in the Moon's trojan points that sporadically emerges to swallow the moon in an event called an 'eklypps.'

    -- Biologists observe quantum-tunneling effect of organic particles that allows manure to generate flies spontaneously.

    ...and, of course:

    -- Giant flaming objects expected to fall from sky soon because of the wrath of the great god Iridium.


    --

  3. Good Mars Books And Links and Stuff by Jikes · · Score: 5

    If you enjoy pulp science fiction, try Ben Bova's _MARS_. It's an easy breezy read.

    If you want a 3-book-long lovemaking session to the planet Mars, I highly suggest Kim Stanley Robinson's _RED MARS_, _GREEN MARS_, and _BLUE MARS_. They get progressively more boring and uninspired as the series progresses through more and more abstract characters, but they are still extremely decent reads that make a slight effort to represent Mars in all it's beauty. The franchise milker _THE MARTIANS_ is also out as of a few months ago. Haven't checked it out, but I expect it to be just as fatally flawed as the others. Oh well.

    Yeah... And there's also Ray Bradbury's _THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES_.. Or was it CS Lewis? I forget and don't care, because I didn't like it.

    Oh yeah, and there is now an official Mars Flag or something. It's three vertical stripes going [RED] [GREEN] [BLUE}. Quite cool.

    Mars is vastly more interesting than you might expect. Read up on it if you like.

    http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/billa/t np/mars.html is an EXCELLENT start if you want to learn more about the planet at a glance.

    http://www.marssociety.org links you to the Mars Society, a delusional group of Mars Freaks who want to settle the planet or something. But they're still cool.

    http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/ has a very supercool solar system simulator that can show you what the planets look like from almost anywhere at almost any time. It's quite accurate and cool. Not open source yet, but i'm sure with some coaxing and good project management, they might be willing to release it. It's written in C and shit, so it'd port pretty easy i'd imagine. The data sets might not be public domain though. Oh well. Go see it anyway.

    Enjoy.

    --
    -troll taker