Flowing Water Discovered on Mars

Dolphy writes "BBC News has the latest big scoop on the Mars phenomenon. Researcher Tahirih Motazedian apparently uncovered proof quite some time ago of flowing water and surface change on Mars."

Comments

Terraforming wont be so hard after all..

[gasgesgos]

they've got water, carbon dioxide, and sunlight...

this whole terraforming thing shouldn't be so hard after all!

Re:Terraforming wont be so hard after all..

[ThaReetLad]

The problem is that martian gravity isn't strong enough to keep a thick enough atmosphere for complex animal life. IIRC every martian spring the frozen C02 at the poles vapourises and migrates to the equatorial regions, where it heats enough that some of the gas achieves (a very low) escape velocity. Mars is constantly leaking gases, and oxygen, being lighter than C02 would escape even more easily. You may be able to generate a thick C02 atmosphere for a short time, but once the temperature started to rise you might start loosing gas faster than you could produce it.

Re:Terraforming wont be so hard after all..

[Anonymous Coward]

Who CARES about a breathable atmosphere..

All we have to do is buid facilities that are marginally air-tight. It's so much simpler than building something to survive in a hard vaccuum. Hell, we could take the plans for the biodome and build the exact same structure and have it successfully work on mars. Espically if you beefed it up slightly to handle the sandstorms that make our F4 hurricanes look like a butterfly fart.

Colinization of Mars is trivial, a 3rd year engineering student can easily hash out all details needed to make all the facilities there very sucessful. Getting everything there is the hard part. until we can stop impacting on the planet and actually land something there with the reliability of the shuttle program... it isn't gonna happen.

Come to think of it, it is not going to happen until we get members of congress and the house PLus a president that are not the stupidest and narrowest on the planet... Or the Chinese get there first.. They may be the only hope for mankind to make it off this rock, because the USA is not capable of it.

Re:Terraforming wont be so hard after all..

[Havokmon]

I still doubt we could manage to balance the ecosystem properly.

Who said it needs to be managed? IMHO, the end justifies the means. We want the end result to support HUMANS, not Tigers, not butterflies. If they fit into what the ecology becomes, then dandy.

It's not that I think it's impossible, I just doubt that the first attempt at terraforming would de successful. Using a subset of the possible flora and fauna would help a lot though.

IMHO, "Success" means Humans can live there without oxygen backpacks . Just because we know it WON'T turn out as we predict, doesn't mean that it can't be 'successful'.

Re:Terraforming wont be so hard after all..

[bluyonder]

Yes, but it would be a very useful experiment. What we learned we could apply back to Earth.

Water's not the only liquid in universe

[_Eric]

One thing I always wondered is why the hell rivers have to be water on mars.

Mars's surface temperature goes down pretty low at night to some -100 degree Celcius, at which nitrogen (roughly our air) is liquid as well (at earth ground pressures).

Can't all those riverbed come from other liquid that only flow at night time and vaporize during daytime. As we only observe the daytime mars, the "water" is always gone.

Anybody have an idea about that?

Re:Water's not the only liquid in universe

[Xilman]

Second, the remarkable thing about water is that based on simple chemical rules it should not be a liquid at ordinary temperatures: ammonia, with a similar MW, is a gas. It is the strong hydrogen bonding between water molecules that gives it the high melting and boiling points, and the very wide range between them.

While that is true about water, it's also true about ammonia! There's quite strong hydrogen bonding in ammonia, which is why its boiling point and freezing point is so much higher than methane which genuinely doesn't have any hydrogen bonding. Methane has molecular weight of 16, ammonia of 17 and water of 18, so all these hydrides are quite similar in that respect. Their boiling points at atmospheric pressure are -161.6C, -33.4C and 100C respectively.

... does not react with oxygen, hydrogen, carbon or sulphur in the liquid state at ordinary pressures, and is easily formed in chemical reactions (which implies a small molecule).

I fail to see why a life-sustaining fluid must not react with oxygen at ordinary pressures. (I fail to see why it need not react with the others noted for that matter, but oxygen is the odd one out.) Oxygen is such a viciously reactive gas that it reacts with almost anything that isn't already heavily oxygenated. There is only free oxygen in the Earth's atmostphere because it has been generated by living organisms which have reacted water with CO_2 to produce useful stuff and a nasty toxic byproduct. Organisms capable of withstanding the corrosive atmosphere came much later and those which actually require free O_2 even later.

A biology that didn't use a hydrolysis reaction wouldn't produce a oxygenated atmosphere and ammonia would very probably serve well as a working fluid. An ammonia-water mixture would possibly be even more suitable.

Paul

Re:Water's not the only liquid in universe

[Pharmboy]

In a universe this vast, it seems impossible to me that we could be the only life. One thing which I expect we'll find if we explore the universe in greater detail is that it's full of weird things. The weirdness of life doesn't come across when we sit at home in ultra-introspective mode, categorizing the minute differences between insects as though they're legendary incredible differences. The weirdness will come across when we're confronted by complex interrelated chemical and physical processes on other worlds, and our biologists won't want to call it life, while the rest of us will (or vice versa).

Purely as a layman: It seems the more I look at human biology, and the potential alternative lifeforms, I begin to conclude that while there MAY BE lifeforms based on something besides carbon, or that are carbon based but look very different than us, I would image most lifeforms in a similar state of intellegence (or lack thereof)DO look similar to us in many ways. I have to image that two eyes (stereoscopic vision) bipedal, and two of most everything is universally desirable. While 3 or more may be better, the benefits are not worth the evolutionary cost.

Paraphrasing Carl Sagan, maybe things look this way because if they were any other way, we wouldnt be here to look at them. Maybe most intellegent life will only form on planet that are .75 to 1.5x the size of earth to maintain the proper atmosphere, with a temperature that is within 30C of earth, etc. Maybe our kind of life only happen in non-binary systems, on planets that have an axis that is offset to the plane of their rotation, creating regular seasons (or maybe not). Not that Earth IS the standard, it just falls WITHIN the standard, so we are here to ask. Maybe life MUST be carbon based, maybe. Maybe we are not quite so unique, and its that all or most intellegent life looks disctictly similar to us in many ways outlined herein.

The irony is, if we found 12 different 'species' that were more or less at the same intellegence level (10000BC to 10000AD our perspective) they may actually look similar to the races on Star Trek. Biped, different features enhanced (Ferrangi with big ears, Vulcans with a logic based society, Klingon's with a warrior based society, etc). I don't mean LITERALLY we meet Klingons, but real species may be as similar simply because evolution works toward a similar model anywhere: Biped, two of everything, about 60 to 100KG in size, internal skeleton, and the variations are due to the variations of that planet. We would probably be just in the middle of this evolution. Maybe Grays are more toward completion of this evolution, if they exist.

Another case of life imitating art. However, unlike Star Trek, I am pretty sure they won't all speak American English. ;-)

It may be water

[CGameProgrammer]

I seriously doubt liquid nitrogen can exist at that low pressure. I figure either BBC is way off (their science stories are always a bit out there) or it really is water. There is certainly ice at the poles and below the surface... we've discovered that.

I don't want life on Mars

[Matimus]

Although its exciting, It would seriously hinder us from engineering Mars into a livable planet. If we discover life there, people will have a big problem with messing up the eco system. I am all for dumping tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, warming the place up, and planting a bunch of trees. It would still be a long time before the environment would be safe for humans.

Re:I don't want life on Mars

[bfinuc]

I disagree for two reasons:

1) Going to Mars would probably suck. For example, I think living in Anarctica sounds a lot better. I predict the population of Mars will never exceed that of Antarctica.

2) Finding life on Mars would be a massive boost to understanding life in general. I bet that if things get better in the next few centuries it will be because mankind improves things on Earth, and that understanding biology is going to be important in that process.

So destroying life, however primitive, on Mars, is probably a bad bet, because colonizing Mars isn't going to help anyone anyway, and studying alien life may very well..

Send Some People Already!

[ThresholdRPG]

All of this speculation really gets us no closer to any valuable knowledge than any probes, robots, or analysis from the past.

We really need to get some actual PEOPLE there to gather some real data. This photo interpretation is only a little bit better than Rorschach Ink blot for crying out loud.

The only real good that comes out of this is hopefully it will generate interest in the nimrods who don't see the value in getting some people on the planet.

To quote Arnold: "Get your butt to Mars!"

At what temprature does water freeze on mars?

[rf0]

I was just thinking at what temprature does water freeze on mars? Surely if there is running water it raises hope that there might some microbes living in it, however I would think that it might depend on the temprature water. Anyone got any ideas? Or am I just talking rubbish?

Rus

Current Data: Inconclusive

[MegaFur]

It's a nice idea, but, as usual, the details don't seem to reinforce the headline much. I can't blame Slashdot (much) for being sensational this time--the story submitter copied the headline from the BBC article. Although the submitter did manage to make it just that tiny bit more sensationist by removing the quotes from the word flows.

The article says how the observed phenomena do all these various things that water should do. As Eric points out, water is not the only liquid. More generally, the question of importance is: what are the other possible causes for the observed phenonena? All we've really got are Dark Streaks and possible Dynamic Fluid Flow. That's not really so much to go on. Sure something's definitely happening down there, and it could be water or some other fluid--but that's all we know right now.

and at the same time

[lingqi]

radiation on mars is killer

darn, eh?

I want life on Mars...

[FFtrDale]

Ours! Most of us old farts were sure when we were children that there would be colonies on Mars before 2003.

Maybe Mars will be a great place to try our hand at terraforming, but whether there's life there or not, we'll see outrageous political battles over the attempt. Let's go anyway! Perhaps it'll have to be some far-off planet that gives us the chance to really engineer the place without massive protests by people on Earth who aren't doing anything themselves. That's no reason not to go to Mars and see what we can find out about the place with actual people there on the ground.

And sure, [i]t would still be a long time before the environment would be safe for humans." Hey, this planet isn't all that safe for humans in the first place. Let's go.

Mars is geologically active? Cool.

[Anonymous Coward]

I read this story and my first thought was "Is mars still volcanically active?" Not by earth standards, but supposedly, it is.

Not new!

[Squareball]

Over 2 years ago Richard C. Hoagland was on Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell and sad discovered this very thing after looking through images that came back from our mars explorer.
Enterprise Mission
So not only is echelon real, not it's confirmed that RCH was right all along. Starts to make these conspiracy shows a little more credible doesn't it?

Water on Mars - who cares?

[juushin]

I really don't see -- and am hoping to be enlightened by the Slashdot masses -- why it is so interesting if there really is water on Mars. I clearly understand that this may be an indication of simple forms of life, ie. microorganisms, inhabiting the planet, but what does this really do for humanity over the long run?

Does this lead people to think that the herculean effort of trying to terraform a planet like Mars is more feasible?

Does this lead credence to the concept of Mars previously having been inhabited by more complex organisms?

Does this...

Re:Water on Mars - who cares?

[dylan_-]

why it is so interesting if there really is water on Mars.

If there is simple life on Mars, there is the possibility that life in this Solar system began on Mars, not Earth. Problems with life beginning on Earth are that it was too hot (around 4 billion years ago when they figure life should have begun) with meteors crashing into it continually so that the surface was basically a sea of lava. Mars was more hospitable at that time.

We've found fragments of Mars, blasted off by impacts, on Earth, so life could have been carried here that way.

If any life on Mars is completely different to Earth life, OTOH, it would be fascinating to see how different approaches could work...also, life developing entirely independently on two planets within our solar system would strongly indicate that life was quite common within the Galaxy.

Life on mars = ???

[Drunken_Jackass]

So I was wondering. If there is, in fact, water on mars. And if because of that, there was life on mars - microbiotic. What would we do?

Aside from all of the theoligical implications, what would our response be? Would we collect it to near extinction ala early biologists (let's kill it, stuff it, and put it under glass) or would we just leave it alone? Would we bring it back here (unlikely) and if so, where would we put it?

I always kind of assumed that if we found life, it would be more simple than science fiction has postured, but i never really thought of the implications of that simplicity.

Geothermal heat?

[DigitalSorceress]

In the article, they mention that geothermal heat could be causing the ice to melt... This dredges up some foggy memories: I seem to recall having heard that Mars no longer had any active volcanism, and that mantle may have solidified (a lack a magnetic field being a strong indicator of this)

I'm not a geologist (or exogeologist for that matter) and so I'm not claiming any special knowledge here, but it keeps bugging the back of my mind - Any insights?

What's really important about water

[antares256]

In order to send people, we would need to know that there are in-situ resources the crews could use. It would be far too expensive to send all of their consumables with them. Water provides many useful products: direct consumption, Oxygen to breathe, fuel for return, Power for fuel cells, etc...Same situation for the Hydrogen discovered on the Lunar Poles by Lunar Prospecter

We know from Odyssey that there is hydrogen in the subsurface (at most a couple of meters from the surface), and it has been proposed that there is permafrost on Mars. If there's a brine of liquid water, it makes the job of extraction much easier.

As for radiation...Dirt makes a good radiation shield (a couple of meters piled on structures would do), so does water.

What's really interesting is the question of where did the water come from? If it's in the highlands near Olympus Mons, then it had to be pushed into the surrounding strata somehow (and the most likely scenario was a "warmer, wetter" period early in Mars's history i.e. Large Liquid Ocean).

This will probably be discussed at this year's LPSC.

Liquid water can exist on Mars

[bluyonder]

As I understand it the median atmospheric pressure on Mars is very close to the triple point of water. In my opinion this is not a coincidence. The fact that Mars atmosphere is balanced at a point where liquid water will form indicates to me that water is a controlling factor in Mars' environment. Since the median pressure on Mars is close to the triple point of water that means, at the lowest altitude areas on Mars, liquid water could exist on the surface at temperatures just above freezing. The water would quickly evaporate though because Mars' atmosphere is so dry.

Re:In the exalted words of our esteemed former VP.

[tmortn]

You know if you take that absolutely literally its funny as most people take it but few understand that fundamentally the guy is right on.

Relatively speaking compared to other planets mars is in roughly the same orbit as earth.. I belive withen 1-2% difference actually.

The canals are more and more likely turning out to be the result of flowing water or possibly CO2... good chance of both.

With water or CO2 there is OXYGEN. cO2 O is for oxygen, the 2 stating there are 2 oxygen atoms per molecule. H2O has one atom of oxygen per molecule. With the energy to split them there is oxygen to breathe. Combine that fact with Mars 'temperate' climate compared to venus's lead melting surface temps and mercuries sun blasted nature mars is the closet planet with abundant life sustaining resources 'easily' available . Far more so than the moon. if you doubt that compare the energy requirements to to extracting them from moon regolith someday, you will get the point rather fast. Next on the list is probably Titan ( around Saturn I believe ).

The way Quayle said it was funny but damn people, cut the man some slack.