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Flowing Water Discovered on Mars

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the john-jones-homeworld dept.

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."

4 of 364 comments (clear)

  1. I don't want life on Mars by Matimus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

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  2. Send Some People Already! by ThresholdRPG · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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!"

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    -Michael
    Threshold RPG
  3. Current Data: Inconclusive by MegaFur · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

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  4. I want life on Mars... by FFtrDale · · Score: 5, Interesting
    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.

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