Evidence Found of Lake, Catastrophic Flood on Mars

angkor points to this article on spaceflightnow.com, excerpting: "Scientists 'have discovered a large former lake in the highlands of Mars that would cover an area the size of Texas and New Mexico combined.'"

Comments

What does it really matter?

[olethrosdc]

I think I ought to summarize the current 'mars' situation. I don't have anything against exploring mars, etc, but it seems to me like people are trying to make worthwhile stories out of trivia.

I think we have been bombarded with the "news" of water on Mars for long enough so far. First it was the polar ice cape water residue, which was quite important. Then there was the hydrogen-trace confirmation, which is perhaps not so important, though it does show that there might be water close enough to the surface to be extracted. However this particular data is completely irrelevant unless there are plans to actually go there and extract water.

Now they have finished a high-resolution altitude map. They used this to calculate the possible origin of the water that shaped a valley, and traced it to something looking like a lake basin. Again, nice, since people theorize that if there were life on mars, there would be a higher chance that it had existed at a lake.

But, is this important? As far as I am concerned, the answer is no, unless someone decides to actually send a mission to the planet to gather hard evidence. Which currently seems impossible, considering the amount of money wasted on the ISS (which has no clear function IMHO).

Re:What does it really matter?

[Boiling_point_]

But, is this important? As far as I am concerned, the answer is no, unless someone decides to actually send a mission to the planet to gather hard evidence.

An awful lot of useful data is gained by remote sensing Mars - just like on Earth. You don't have to touch down in order to learn.

Different forms of matter have things called spectal signatures - the particular pattern of all the different wavelengths emitted/reflected. You can use these signatures to work out what sort of stuff rocks are made of, how old they are, what concentrations they're in and in what patterns they lie.

On Earth it's arguably more interesting, since you can tell different types of vegetation and settlement patterns just by measuring, say, the infra-red or ultraviolet you can see.

Research on Mars isn't about Martian life, all of the time. It's not even about terraforming and possible future human settlement - it's about taking science developed and theorised on Earth and applying it in new and challenging locations. By finding evidence of a huge body of water on Mars, we now know that all the theories of Martian geohistory (is that a word?) that rely on a small volume of past surface water are less likely to be true. This sort of stuff might be important in ways we don't know yet.

...it seems to me like people are trying to make worthwhile stories out of trivia.

Sure, plenty of people like to think of the possibilities and implications of teeny lifeforms sprouting up on a nearby planet. Fewer people, but they are out there, are just as fascinated by the basic interactions of huge universal systems and forces - of things on a scale millions of orders of magnitude bigger. Sometimes the news doesn't need to be dramatic, if you've got your eye on a bigger picture anyway :)

Re:What does it really matter?

[Anarchofascist]

... there might be water close enough to the surface to be extracted. However this particular data is completely irrelevant unless there are plans to actually go there and extract water.

I don't understand your lack of understanding. I'll try to put it into simple terms:

A: Water on Mars makes Mars more interesting to visit, because where there's water there is/was life.
B: Water is to rockets what petroleum is to cars.

Therefore, these discoveries make Mars easier to return from, and make it a more interesting place to visit. Therefore it is more likely that one or more countries (probably the Chinese at this rate) will want to pay to send people there.

From the fringe

[Alien54]

Of course, elements from the fringe have been arguing there is/has been water there for ages. It seems that it is only now the the official scientists are starting to say "well, there could be", or even "look at our new discovery."

Examples of how strange this get are seen here. Ignoring the junk science nonsense, the pictures are interesting. If you scroll about halfway down, there is one mars photo, conveniently linked to the nasa archive, that looks for all the world like an actual sea shore. So much so it is startling.

Of course, the real scientists are taking their sweet time coming to any conclusions (insert plausible reason here), which is driving the hobbyists and others right up a wall.