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Mounting Evidence for Water on Mars
Kent Simon writes "Space.com has an interesting article discussing new evidence from the mars rovers that shows there may really be Water on Mars."
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I don't see what's mysterious about these at all. You have to remember that Mars has much less gravity than Earth, ergo, the amount of force required to displace a pebble is so much less. So while the atmosphere is thinner there than it is over here, it is still sufficiently dense to allow for substantial winds to develop; winds that displace these pebbles and cause them to move over the ground, and over time--millions and millions of years--this repeated displacement causes the tiny stones to become spheroid in shape. The end.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
Come on, somebody get that copywriter laid before he sublimates again.
Yep, just like that other NASA falsehood that the Spirit rover dug the first artificial hole in Mars recently, when we know that the European Beagle lander did that late last year.
Jolyon
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
Now I'm thirsty and hungry!
There's a bit of a difference between an orbiter and a rover located on the actual planet.
I doubt you this kind of evidence from an orbiter:
Other images show the rover tracks clearly are being made in "mud", with water being pressed out of that material, Levin said. "That water promptly freezes and you can see reflecting ice. That's clearly ice. It could be nothing else," he said, "and the source is the water that came out of the mud."
Indeed. I submitted a story about the ESA's orbiter finding water on Mars months ago, but it was rejected. It's called "Not Discovered Here" syndrome.
(insert default opportunistic company to sell useless Mars water products... and somehow profit)
-tEd
I've seen the canals with my trusty telescope!
mars# mount /dev/evidence /mnt/water
OK we all know that water is needed to sustain life on earth, which is why its such a biggie when the possibility of water on extra-terrestial terrains arises.
But what is it exactly about water that makes it so important? Here is a page which shows some of the most important properties of water. It shows, for example, how capillary action works, a property that allows plants up to 20 feet (i think!) tall to absorb water without using any energy whatsoever!
Some very interesting data here, the scientist Levin says the imagery offers conclusive proof of Mars Mud! This would seem to me to be indicative of water frequency that would lead to life after all!
Little mars space men, here we come!
Post apocalyptic gaming goodness
Another interesting point is probably a possible power source so if some of the nice red rocks contains a substance that is able to generate engergy, that would be better.
"There are lots of geologists out there who are looking at these pictures and they are starting to drool," Haldeman said. "The American taxpayer that spent $800 million on this deserves a thorough analysis," Haldeman said.
Which taxpayer payed this much?
I have a life. I really do. I've just chosen to ignore it.
but it also has Hydrogen Peroxide in the atmosphere!
link
Antiseptic and life-killing, the chemical helps explain why the martian atmosphere and surface are void of life.
HOW'S MY POSTING? CALL 1-800-POSTING
*Idiomatic Irish variation on an Anglo Saxon word.
${YEAR+1} is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop!
Damn those lazy NASA engineers. The February 29th cut off date has come and gone and they have yet make an official declaration of an ocean on Mars. What the hell have they been doing over there? Moving the rover 10 ft at a time, spending days just to get the damn thing off the landing platform, pathetic. There must be some shady deal going on between them and Long John Silver's to move really slowly to not have to tell the world that they found an ocean so they can share all of the free giant shrimp between themselves. This article just confirms it. Obviously they have enough evidence to proclaim that Mars is a big ocean, yet they don't because it would cut into their giant shrimp profits. Scandal I say!
"I have a porkchop, you have a porkchop. I have a veal, you have a veal".
I mean, seriously. I'm not trolling, just scratching my head...
We are sitting on a planet that has everything we could possibly want. Water, food, sun, beaches, fresh mangos, carnival once a year, beer, ADSL for peanuts.
And now the hint of the memory of water on Mars is enough to give us sciencegasms of pleasure. "Oooh, water, bacterial lifeforms,"... I know, water = life, life = understanding, etc.
But it seems so perverse. There is such a huge waste of life and resources going on all around us. Nothing we ever find on Mars will be remotely as interesting as - say - a bucket of seawater from any corner of the world's oceans. We'll spend fortunes trying to extract a few nuggets of knowledge from the furthest corners of our domain while ignoring the mountains of knowledge that remain to be unpuzzled all around us.
Are we just a perverse species, or what?
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Has anyone else noticed the six segment radial spoke pattern on one of the spherules? Six-fold symmetry perhaps related to the same way that snowflakes form? Maybe the beads are snowflakes that gradually accrete into ice-droplets?
Either that, or the spherules are organic...
The Mars program's stated goal is the detection of water on Mars - therefore every possible shred of evidence for that conclusion is being reported, with no discussion at all of any alternative interpretations.
A couple of very interesting opinion pieces at spacedaily.com recently sum up some alternative theories.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love it to be true. But there's a distinct water-mania in the current NASA press machine...
Why should humans go to Mars?
Because humans need new destinations and ever-expanding horizons.
Because going to Mars will inspire the nation's youth.
I hope they didnt stay up all night answering their frequently asked questions.
Wouldn't it be better to find the real thing?
Read the blog. Good one. But then americans have always claimed they invented the rail engine, airplane and submarine! No surprise in that
-------- Cluster bombing from B-52s is very, very accurate -- the bombs always hit the ground.
what a weird / poorly written article. maybe i'm misunderstanding some of their statements, but the author makes certain important conclusions that totally lack support. In particular, the possibiliy of liquid water (as evidenced by mud) is suggested. The article states "Levin points to Opportunity imagery that offers conclusive proof of standing liquid water and running water on a cold Mars." The argument is that freezing areas in the rover's tracks are filled with ice, which is supposedly identified through pictures. This may be valid, but to suggest that such an important conclusion can be made by theorizing on what could make a shiny surface in imagaes... seems excessive. This appears especially absurd to me because the rover has tools specifically designed to answer this question. I mean, why is this guy attempting to conjecture this based on images when we can use IR & GC to find out exactly what is there? I suppose the point in this article is that this data has been collected, and is to be announced soon, but the confidence with which the article makes these assertions and its lack of explication for the possible errors in these theories really frustrated me and seems totally inappropriate in a scientific publication, even one online :\
Mod me down, and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
If Mars really is a "Waterworld", we'll invest vast amounts of money in it but no people will ever go to see it. Oh wait...
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
Yeah but it doesn't matter if there is water or not because if the supposed "Life Killing Chemical" is really present in the martian atmosphere like this article says it is...
3 82 7.asp
http://www.sltrib.com/2004/Mar/03012004/utah/14
Keep the faith, share the code
I wonder on Mars if it can rain upwards
It only makes sense, considering the red sky and blue sunset.
On Mars, er-- In Soviet Russia, the umbrella wears YOU!
on top of that...
we have only discovered about 20% of the ocean.. compared to what we are capable discovering space.. i say we definitely put more money into marine researching and explore that.. would be much safer and efficient too..
How about the viking landers in '76?
They had a little scoop so they could get some soil and perform tests for life.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
Anyone know where the images of this 'pasta-like' object are? I'd sure like to see that!!!
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Its not "not discovered here", its "news media organizations not heavily biased over there" ...
Slight difference, I know, but get it right. The Media is quite often the enemy of Science, and The People.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Ryleh had to be on Earth. I for one quiver with fear at our new Lovecraftian masters' sub-aquatic subterranian resting place.
Meanwhile, in other news, a special report from Scotland - batter found on Mars.
wow what a stupid post & argument. i dont mean to sound argumentative, but you provide almost no support for your conclusion that "ESA's mission is superior to NASA's mission". First let me say the ESA mission is important and useful. Remote mapping of the surface will help researcers understand martian geography, helping to locate points of interest, understanding weather paterns, and learning more about the geographic changes the planet may have undergone over the past few thousand years.
. html for spirit's photos, http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/opportu nity.html for opportunity's.
_ surface_instru.html for details) are also very important. these tools will allow accurate analysis of collected samples. while an orbiter can determine chemical content to a degree, the detail pales in comparison to what the rovers are finding.
But the US mission is also very valuable. You ask "But what have they produced so far? A few snapshots and panorama pictures (which are nice, but well...), and some stone probes." which is really just silly. The photos the landers have taken are more than just panoramas of the scenary. While these do tell us more about the martian surface, the really imporant pictures are of the rock formations, close-ups of the surface sand and rock, and micrographs of all the material there at the surface. Seeing exactly what martian rock, pebbles, and sand looks like is very important for understanding the martian atmosphere & weather patterns, as well as geologic makeup and history.
to suggest that it's only taken a few is absurd... check out http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/spirit
the other tools on the rovers (see http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/spacecraft
with all your unfounded critisism and palpable distaste for another country, I almost mistook you for an American! try not to be so prejudiced in the future, mmK?
Mod me down, and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
Of course the rovers' instruments are limited in their ability to identify substances.. what is the freezing point of beer? Those spherules look suspiciously like froth, and there is more CO2 in the atmosphere than can be accounted for..
Oh my god.. the Martians are.. Triffids. Oh, wait, mis-red the post. Seriously, though, water may be essential to life, but I still don't think it's much to get excited over. I mean, it means what - that very very primitive life may have existed there a long time ago, possibly no more complex than your average pond life. I'd rather see the money spent on Mars exploration spent actually plumbing the depths of our own aquatic reserves. Now videoing a giant squid, that'd grab my attention.
True.
I stand corrected.
-------- Cluster bombing from B-52s is very, very accurate -- the bombs always hit the ground.
> I wonder on Mars if it can rain upwards," he said.
:)
I wonder if they are smoking some pot in Maryland...
class he-man extends man!
The presence of water in Mars has nothing new in it. In fact, for quite long we have had several evidences of its presence. Unfortunately all this messed with a long-standing presumption that Mars is Dry-Dried-Drying-Dead. This presumption was born from the unfortunate fight between Lowell and other scientists on the presence of civilizations in Mars. Each one of us may qualify Lowell's extrapolations from several points of view. But the fact is that many scientists of his time and later decided that the best argument against Lowell was to extrapolate the counterarguments. The fact was that the "scientific" discussion of Lowell's ideas as more as putting counterweights rather than well-weighed scientific arguments. It seems that people were more scared by Lowell's radicalism rather than studying Mars. If Lowell said there was a civilization, his opponents tried to overshow everything to demonstrate that civilizations could not exist in Mars, down to denying the chances for Life in Mars. If Lowell argumented that Mars had channels to carry precious water, almost everyone tried to demonstrate that there is not even a molecule of water in the atmosphere...
The result was that at Viking's time, most circles were standing for the Dry-Dried-Drying-Dead argument, no matter the controversial data from spectroscopy, the first pictures from Mars and several theories about the formation of the Solar System. Most academical circles were not only willing to but forcing the view that Mars was just like the Moon but more colder.
Unfortunately things did not stop only in this. There were people that for some reason falsified Viking's results or manipulated other results. For some reason, these people needed the Dry-Dried-Drying-Dead Mars argument as a weapon for their silly, stupid and overreligious theories. Frankly it is another show on how Mars, since Kepler, has been ground not only for a scientific debate but also for political-religious fistfights... Anyway, the extremism of ideas and the fundamentalism of some slowed down the exploration of Mars.
If you hear a refutation of the new discoveries, be careful. Before coming into conclusions try to find if this is the product of a scientific discussion, how correctly people step up with their arguments, or if this is another mass-media show between Hoagland-alikes and Horowitz-clones.
...that on something as large as the PLANET Mars, there would be at least SOME water? I heard in school that water is made of common elements,
... pffffft.
'hydrogen' and 'oxygen'. Finding water on Mars is inevitable.
Let me know when they find some sort of bacteria or micro-organism. Water
don't you know the saying? "Water water everywhere, so lets all take a drink."
ESA decided to send one orbiter and one lander to mars, NASA decided to play safe and sent out not one but two landers, Spirit and Opportunity. And of course, they have their own orbiter, too.
Orbiter? Try Orbiters -- there are two existing orbiters -- Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey. The MER missions did not orbit.
But when you look at the actual scientific data produced by both the ESA and the NASA mission, you will see that NASA definitely does the better PR work. But what have they produced so far? A few snapshots and panorama pictures (which are nice, but well...)
You don't really have a clue, do you? First, some of those "snapshots" are from the Pancam, which has a variety of narrow-band filters to allow detailed image analysis. Second, the rovers have been collecting a TON of data from the other main science instruments -- MiniTES, Mossbauer, APXS. While these don't produce pretty pictures (just boring spectragraphs), it's a wealth of scientific information.
and some stone probes. But due to their design, they can't drill down further than maybe a few meters (if even that deep).
"Stone probes"? WTF are you talking about? The rovers can essentially spin a wheel in place to carve out a trench in the soil. That can dig in the ballpark of 6 inches. There's also a RAT tool to grind rocks, which only goes a few milimeters -- that's all you need to get past any dust or weathering.
This isn't a sub-surface exploration mission, so complaining about that is like saying Slashdot sucks because there's not enough advice on cosmetics.
but IMHO, it's not really something special: we've seen pictures from mars before, and we've analyzed probes from mars before.
We've never seen pictures like the microscopic imager is taking. And it's naaive to say that just because a couple of previous missions have takes pictures that there's no value in doing anything similar again... For simple example, look at how radically different the Opportunity site is from the other missions (Spirit, Pathfinder, Viking I&II).
So, I'm a lot more impressed by the work done by ESA: although they lost their lander (what a pity...), they concentrated not so much on the PR (no "the best crew in the world!" cheering) but more on actual science
That's an insult to everyone in NASA working on the MERs. Have you ever done any real science? It's obvious you don't know anything about the NASA mission, but to make a blanket statement like that about the science just a couple of weeks into the mission is stupid. It can take months to years to develop all the final results.
Let's look at your other ESA claims:
produced detailled 3D maps of parts of mars which has never done before, and where the big geological structures can be analyzed better than ever before.
Uhm, no. NASA has been making maps since the Mariner and Viking missions in the 60's and 70's. More recently, the MGS and Odyssey orbiters have been producing higher-resolution imagery. MGS has even taken pictures of the rovers on the surface (see http://www.msss.com/mer_mission/index.html).
proved the existence of water on the south pole of mars. NASA asserted that they had detected that in 2001 already, but in fact, they didn't, because they didn't have the right equipment. All they were able to detect at that time was hydrogen, which is a possible indicator for water, but definitely not a prove.
It would be more accurate to say "confirmed," no "proved." ESA's PR is in hyper-overdrive here. Previous results from other missions (especially Odyssey's neutron spectrometer) have led to the forgone conclusion that water/ice is present. ESA's results are an "independant cconfirmation," but are hardly a novel or shocking result.
measured the actual temperature on the mars surface (up to +4 degrees Celsius), which is higher than estimated before.
Aga
The Mars Global Surveyer found traces of hydrogen first, and also returned the first images which seemed like water carving the martian surface.
And, to top it all off, there is a small but steady band of real scientists that believe that Viking did in fact find life on Mars.
This is my sig.
We all know that hydrogen is the most common element in the known universe, why is it such a big deal that some of that greatly abundant hydrogen exists in H2O on Mars?
With the countless gallons on earth, it shouldn't be a big deal that just a fraction of that much water ended up on Mars.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Is there anything in this world that people can work together without turning it into a pissing contest?
The Mother of all pissing contest, the Cold War, has already ended.
So take example and start aiming to the toilet. This place is already too smelly.
-For Cleaner Environment
I remember watching a documentary on UK television describing one of the theories as to how water came to be on Earth. It was proposed that much of the ocean's water came from comets that pelted the Earth before there was an atmosphere and with the Earth being the right distance from the sun, we got oceans (instead of steam on venus and ice(?) on Mars). It has also been suggested that the building blocks of life (amino acids etc.) may also have come from extraterrestrial debris.
Could it be that without an atmosphere on Mars, comets and the like could be falling on the planet and depositing their contents on the surface in the same way as has happened on earth? I mean, heck, we've even got our rover planted in the midst of a crater created by extra-martian debris and since there is little or no erosion on this planet we could be partly examining the contents of extra-planetary material. Personally, I think this would make the examination even more interesting than it already is!
Sorry, I may act stupid, but the heck is BB ?
Definately it cannot be found in the SI-system !Is it a "common imperial measurement unit for roundish martian objects" ?
I know A,B,C,D and even DD-cup but BB ?!
mod parent down. its just a bunch of anti-american tripe, most of his claims are plain wrong or made up. (drill several meters? wtf are you smoking?).
i have to wonder if he actually believes the bs he'ss writing, or if his entire blog is intended to be just one continuous troll.
Umm, I doubt they would say that. It seems that these days, any expirement or activity that suggests that questions the existence of god or raises doubts about the validity of words attributed to god, is considered immoral by the religious community. (ie embryonic stem cell research, gay marriage). If they find life on Mars, I'm willing to bet, space exploration is going to become a major ethical and theologic debate that (frankly) I'm not sure we want to go there. Particularly with this president.
I say the Soviet Mars 2 mission dug the first hole :)
karma capped
Remember when Chekov was scanning Ceti Alpha 5 for life before testing the Genesis device there, and his captain said that even a microbe meant the test would be a no-go? Remember what happened to the invading Martians at Grover's Mill NJ: they're highly vulnerable to Terran bacteria.
But seriously, a dead, sterile Mars is one we could start sending people to, and eventually set up a permanent settlement (with waste products and all). But one with actual life would - for scientific, and arguably for moral reasons - have to be quarantined.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Well, you succeeded in trolling and being flamebait.
I don't believe there's anything in Scripture that precludes extra-terrestrial life. The Bible is truth, but not exhaustive truth. If you want to learn Perl, for example, the camel book will be significantly more use to you than the Bible.
Seems to me like you have a real problem with the Church. Not surprising, given how much of it behaves, but that doesn't alter the *fact* of whether or not God exists.
Ydco co
...do you have specific examples?
I was going to mod yet feel that I must post. Why can we not just take our nationlism, stow it and accept the fact that both NASA's mission and the ESA's mission are providing valueable contributions to mankind. Spirit and Opportunity provide a prespective that Mars Express cannot. Mars Express provides a prespective that Spirit and Opportunity cannnot. Both missions are good science!
Of course, if they find nothing, the scientific community will graciously bow to all things religious and happily confirm that there is no life beyond Earth. Yeah, fair play for all from the scientific community...
More likely, they'll concoct some weird story about dust on some solar panels, admit a setback, find some last minute "evidence", shut off the rovers, ask for some money, and try it again.
Windows XP SP2 told me to install third-party software that prevents viruses and protects stability... I chose Ubuntu
Was this listed as a troll because it stated the impossible, or just the uncomfortable? And here I was, hoping to be modded up for funny...
Windows XP SP2 told me to install third-party software that prevents viruses and protects stability... I chose Ubuntu
So how long before a commercial entity gets up there, and starts mining the water? You can look foward to Pepsi Space Age - selling at $200 a bottle - or Eau Du Mars - $1000 a bottle.
Not true. Beagle dug a real hole.... :P
the pun is mightier than the sword
You're right, as Americans we didn't make many of the products/services you use today... ...we made many of the products/services you use today better.
(actually don't know if this series of commercials plays outside the US--so the joke might be lost)
If life was discovered on Mars, would the christians think that Jesus also died for the sins of the Martians?
Thats true, to think there are some people around who still think that the earth is flat, and I am not talking about uneducated peoples (amazon people etc), I am talking about educated people. You will have some believers and some people who ignore the facts even when you show them.
If the rover had landed at Syria Planum, they might have awakened the Shadow vessel buried there.
If "hard" evidence was found that could appease the secular scientific community of the validity of the resurrection of Christ, would the secular scientific community concede we live in a universe that suffers miracles?
Windows XP SP2 told me to install third-party software that prevents viruses and protects stability... I chose Ubuntu
That is true if the globules spherical shape is the result of mechanical weathering. The spheres may also be concretions, formed in place through precipitation in an aqueous environment, or the may be melt glass from a volcanic eruption or meteor impact. The microlayered structure of the outcrop is also fascinating. I don't think it is known definitively yet whether it volcanic ash or a lake sediment. Observation of either one is a first for Mars exploration.
an ill wind that blows no good
Sorry, but the ESA orbiter showed this more than a month ago. NASA is just too late
It is obvious that you didn't read the article. The editor's post of the story was a little misleading because we've known about water on Mars for some time.
Having said that, the article states that they think they are actually SEEING liquid water freeze as it's being pressed upward out of the soil by the rover's wheels. That's much different than detecting it with an orbitor. Also, if I'm not mistaken the ESA orbitor suggested that water vapor exists in the atmosphere, not the soil. The missions are complimentary (ESA and NASA have been assisting one another by relaying commands through both of their orbitors and NASA has been trying to actually find Beagle visually using their orbitor). No one is taking credit for anything they haven't done. No need to get defensive.
The ESA "discovery" announcement last month was accompanied by a cartoonish image of the Valles Marineris area. I have yet the see the source data for this grandiose conclusion. Visual evidence for an abundance of water on Mars dates from the Mariner 9 mission in the early seventies. No one has yet trumped the awesome observations of recently active gullies in Mars southern hemisphere.
an ill wind that blows no good
I was trying to point out humorously that the church doesn't respond well to advances in science and technology. What's that? The earth isn't the center of the universe? Blasphemy! Evolution? No way is an ape my ancestor! Dinosaurs? Well they existed with humans! The world's only 5,000 years old damn it!
I don't think I was a troll or flamebait, and I don't have a problem with the church. There's no mention of extra-terrestrial life though anywhere in the bible, I think that finding some would be pretty strong proof against the existence of god (but then again there has been much stuff never mentioned in the bible, or challenged by science that should make people say hey maybe god doesn't exist but then those people mostly ignore it or brush it off.) How would god talk about the creation of the entire universe and leave out "Oh and there's life on other planets, earth isn't the only place in the universe with life." It'd probably be much like discovering the first fossils of dinosaurs, they were never mentioned in the bible and then you get some strange beliefs that dinosaurs and humans existed at the same time (like this)
should be happy. More "evidence" that the US should "go to Mars" (id est, establish interplanetary military presence).
That's not evidence, that's a hypothesis that has yet to be tested.
No, sorry, that's evidence.
"...and I say that we should wipe them out before they cause any more trouble. Their incessant broadcasting in practically every frequency gives me headaches every time we pass that system. I tell you, they are galactic trailer trash."
"OK, tell you what. We'll let them develop without interference. We'll take that dead world nearest them, and sprinkle it around with some single-celled organisms. Once they start exploring, they'll find the organisms, and THEN - when confronted with an entirely defenseless foreign life form - we'll see their true moral character."
"Deal."
-Styopa
Hmmm, you should have paid attention in your freshman physics class. No such thing as "negative pressure." What you meant to say was "lower relative pressure" and even then you're still wrong. Even if the leaves managed to lower the air pressure above their surface to zero psi, which of course they can't, the highest you can lift water via air pressure differential is 10.3 meters. A water column 10.3 meters high weighs as much as a column of air reaching from sea level to the top of the atmosphere.
If you want to move water to the top of a sequoia, you've got to use some mechanism other than air pressure differentials. In fact, had you carefully read the page you linked to, you would have noticed that transpiration peters out at around 32 feet.
From the link:
In 1895, the Irish plant physiologists H. H. Dixon and J. Joly proposed that water is pulled up the plant by tension (negative pressure) from above.
Now, if you want to say that the term "negative pressure" is not exactly descriptive or correct then of course you're right; us biologists tend to twist terms to fit our needs quite happily. But I did not mean "lower relative pressure".
The 32 feet figure was given in the link as an example of what vacuum pums can do in a model such as you described, but in plants that's not the case. In plants it is the evaporation of water at the leaves what creates the suction that pulls the water up. That's where the "negative pressure" comes from.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
"There is no water on mars, never." (talking about the WMD - "water of mass destruction")
You can't win a religious argument by using logic. If there is life on Mars, the committed creationist will say that God must have put it there. It won't even be an issue.
This is my sig.
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/1/p/035 /1P131297604ESF0500P2598L2M1.HTML
Might the subsurface "sparkling" spheres be a form of Martian brine shrimp eggs
similar to the Great Salt Lake brine shrimp eggs???
photo 1
photo 2
More on the Great Salt Lake Brine Shrimp ecology can be found here:
Link 1
Link 2
Soil Crust Analogs on Earth???
Likewise a USA Today article Imprint shows Mars craft landed in 'weird stuff' describes "The soil was stripped up and folded in an interesting way," said Jim Bell, who designed the panoramic camera that Spirit used to photograph the "mud-like" patch. "It has quite alien textures."
Might this soil crust on Mars be same/similar to the biological soil crust found at Arches National Park (Moab, Utah)?
Additional details regarding biological soil crusts maybe are to found here:
intermediate details
advanced details
I believe Juanita
There are planets other than mars, not finding life on one planet does NOT mean that there is life no where else in the universe except earth. But finding life on mars means there is deffinitely life on other planets. Now if they found a burning bush or a giant ark (with lots of feces from every different species of animal on the planet), I'm sure they'd open up to the idea that god does exist.
If they find fish too, I guess...
Wishing I was a millionaire since 1969.
The photos from the Rovers are all black and white images, some filtered by bandwidth. This site
http://xpda.com/mars
has combined a lot of the filtered photos into reasonably good color images. I might have to visit Mars to verify the accuracy of the color...
Ummm, I should think that quite a lot is known about dust devils.
Every cumulus cloud that you see is a dust devil (though usually without the dust). The rising air of the dust devil is itself responsible for the cloud. Oft times it happens that the rising air either runs into an inversion or is sufficiently dry that it doesn't reach the dew point to condense a cloud. In deserts and dryer climes those rising air columns often find plenty of dust to pick up, making them visible.
Further, these things are useful. Skilled pilots can use them to fly hundreds of miles in a day (1000km is not unheard of; I've personally flown > 300 km several times). As the poster mentions, they are often visible and rise up to two miles. (Actually more; in New South Wales (Australia) or Arizona (US) on a good summer day, they go regularly to 3-4,000m and more than 5,000m is not unheard of.) In mountainous areas where pilots are likely to carry supplemental oxygen, dust devils are scarcer, and orographic winds are more practical for achieving very high altitude (10,000m+) and long distance (500km+) flights. The orographic winds ("ridge lift", "wave") also tend to break up dust devils, strongly limiting their altitudes in mountainous regions.
Without thunderstorms (on earth) dust devils sometimes reach upward speeds of 30 knots (15m/s) or more. With thunderstorms (condensing and freezing water release heat), much more powerful winds are created (> 70 knots).
Further, in many areas of the world, you can get soaring forecasts. These provide some indication of the likelyhood of "thermals" (dust devils, w/ or w/o dust), what time of the morning they are likely to start (they are driven by sunlight), how strong they are likely to be, how high they are likely to be, and how many can be found per unit area. (Or you can use a T-phi chart or a Stuve chart (aka "skew chart") and a few measurements to figure these things yourself.)
I can't beleive there is even a debate about water on Mars, there is a HUGE ice cap which we know is water. No drilling needed, just scoop it up. Who knows how much there is in a water table or underground lakes. Marc
This is a goodness. You grok?
ah yes, the BBC and reuters... those bations of journalistic integrity and scientific knowledge!
by decaring water a WMD. Simultaneously will nuke every nation on earth.
Summerians already know Mars was a water planet.
What's in a sig?What's in a sig?
Got modded down for "trolling."
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
So we have been pointing fingers at NASA, criticising them for their recent disasters, resulting from budget cuts. Now all of a sudden we're seeing lots of stories about "water on Mars". "Hey look, we think we found water on MARS! We need more money to go investigate further!". Is this a case of using the ends to justify the means?
A troll? You bet!
Just call me the drole troll!
He is just jealous because Europe has never successfully landed anything on another planet, unlike these united States and Russia.
They can't even get the color correction remotely correct on their orbiter (although it does have a very nice instrument suite, and I'm virtually salivating over the ground-penetrating radar results)
After reading this paper and several others by Dr. Levin, I have to wonder why the general public has no idea about these findings. Don't they merit public discussion? Why don't *any* of NASA's planned Mars missions contain direct life-detection experiments? IANACT (Conspiracy Theorist), but something smells fishy to me.
If you look at the spheroid in the upper left of this image you see a spheroid that actually looks like two partial spheres stuck together. It looks to me like it's caused by an imperfection in the crystal structure. Anyway the shape couldn't be caused by the spheroid rolling around on the surface.
Most planetary scientests have accepted for decades that water is a major force in Martian geology. The polar ice caps have long been known to have a substantial water component. The Viking missions detected chemical salts typical of evaporation deposits. Nothing other than water has been proposed for the major outflow channels found all over the Martian surface. See planetary scientist William K. Hartmann's excellent recent book, "A Traveler's Guide to Mars" for lots more information.
Evidence of *recent* water activity is interesting and important, but the loss of this nuance is typical of "news" journalism, which must justify every story as Brand! New! Exciting! Information!
This isn't a sub-surface exploration mission, so complaining about that is like saying Slashdot sucks because there's not enough advice on cosmetics.
Yeah, really. Slashdot has plenty of advice on cosmetics. Sheesh!
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
The Bible is truth, but not exhaustive truth.
No, the Bible is not truth, and this is easy enough to prove. For it to be truth, it could not contain a single contradiction or factual innaccuracy.
Here is a page which lists a number of contradictions in the Bible.
Note that even one would be enough to prove that the Bible is not completely true and therefore could not be the unadulterated word of God.
I am aware that Christians have a number of excuses for this (the word of God is perfect, but it was transcribed by imperfect humans, errors were introduced in translation, etc.) but the fact is that this must necessarily cast doubt on the accuracy of the entire work. If you are forced to admit that certain passages of the Bible are inaccurate, how can you know for certain that all of the other passages are accurate?
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
And have the rovers confirmed the presence of peroxides? Remember the Viking biologic experiments came back positive. It seemed at the time, like some folks went into overdrive to explain the results on the basis of soil peroxides. That always seemed far-fetched, to me, on a planet covered with FERRIC oxide. The Martian soil crusts sure look like desert crusts on earth, and on earth the crusts are loaded with cyanobacteria. The predominance of CO2 would argue against that, but there is almost NO ATMOSPHERIC NITROGEN. Is there nitrogen (read: ammonia) in the Martian soil? Nitrogen is an essential component of amino acids and proteins.
"...while history is usually explicable it is often irrational" --Roger Spiller
I have to wonder why the general public has no idea about these findings.
The public has no idea about a lot of things. Anyhow, until inorganic chemistry can be completely ruled out, we don't know anything for sure. Intreeging, yes. Proof, no.
Table-ized A.I.
Is it just me or is anyone else getting tired of hearing what music each rover "wakes-up" to as reported on by nasa each day on the NASA Rover Status Page?
It was cute the first few times, but now it's just getting insipid as these engineers try desperately to link the day's work with the title of some song.
Ok guys, we all know you have gigs of MP3s and you're all really cool. Now, why not just start every rover morning with Also Sprach Zarathustra?
It is almost impossible that there is no water on Mars. The planet has had its fair share of impacts. Those include an equally fair share of water bearing material, such as cometary ice. The question should not be "whether" but "how much and for how long".
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
I figured that I would make a few guess's, the amount of education applicable to them is for you to decide.
Ok, Gravity 1/3 rd. (roughly, everything here is roughly and ballpark)
Atmospheric pressure 1/10 th.
So for a given volume the amount of wind speed to push is going to be:
If I remember correctly it's double the wind speed and you quadruple the force. So it's 1/10 the pressure but it can only do 1/40 th the work for a given speed. So if you have a wind on earth that pushes against something with a force of 4 Kg at a speed of 10 Kph then on mars the same 10 Kph wind would only have a force of 62.5 grams, if you double the wind speed to 20 Kph you get 250 grams. Double it again to 40 kph and you get a force of 1.0 Kg and double a last time gets you to 4 kg with a wind speed of 80 Kph. So to get the same force you need 8 times the wind speed.
Of course it's not quite that simple. The 1/3 rd gravity means the same force seems to do more. What it really means is that it takes less force to do anything where gravity is a component. Friction for instance or any operation involving an up or down component.
I would guess that the best ways to simulate it here on earth would be to modify the other parameters to match our gravity. For instance, if your interested in how water might have worked on rock in that gravity then use something that is 3 times the density of water and see how it behaves on rock. Something as simple as a rock tumbling kit filled with an appropriate liquid mixture and compare the results with those produced by water.
To reflect the difference in air you might try to use a fluid to make the rocks have a similar weight as they would on mars then modify the size to match the density of the liquid vs. the Martian atmosphere which has the added benefit of letting you lower the flow speeds to match as well.
Basically it seems that things would happen slower for the most part whenever anything with a gravity component is involved. Flows would be slower, on the other hand inertia is the same so when 2 particles collide you get the same bang for the buck.
I suspect that weathering based on moving water would be similar. I'm not sure if possible changes in elevation would make up for the lesser gravity, I suspect not though.
Atmospheric weathering should be more noticeable. Because of the density you should be able to sort out those rocks that can and can't be moved as opposed to rocks that could have been moved by water but not by air. The differences in weathering on the various sides of these rocks should answer some questions.
Ok enough of this, time to return to my thorazine and play with the pretty bits...
Ward
. Silence! Be thankful thy species is unpalatable! .
In several of the mars pics, the grinder had ground one clean through. Looked pretty featureless and very solid in those pics. I would think grinding through a dried up brine shrimp egg would sort of mess it up.
Unless they are tiny Horta eggs.
I've read a fair amount of the Creationist stuff. Views in fact vary widely (young earth, old earth, etc., etc.), but I believe that the position that will be taken is that the life on Mars is Earth life populated via span-spermia.
That view may in fact be a correct one, but we could only know after analysis of Martian life forms bio-chemical strucure, i.e -- does it have earth like DNA? Assuming of course that such life forms are present.
I have read about these positive experiments as well, they are quite interesting and it is funny how NASA basically ignored this data or at least refused to even entertain that life may have been found in these experiments.
While I don't buy all the stuff spouted out by Hoagland and the likes I do think they have a very good point that there is probably much more to Mars than meets the eye.
Even the remote possibility of artificial structures means we should expend as much energy as possible to go there and check these things out, it kinda makes sense that an ancient or alien race may leave clues on other bodies in the solar system for us to find once we evolve enough to see them. It may also be remnants of a lost civilization or a long since deserted outpost of some sort, or it might be nothing but it still needs to be checked out rather thoroughly.
I think part of the problem is it goes against many scientists personal belief systems if life is a norm rather than an exception in the universe. Also, our religious belief systems are built on humans being sort of special in the universe too, it could cause some social problems if we are told we're nothing special at all. This is becoming less of an issue mind you as we're slowly subjected to more media about space and alien possibilities in both science and science fiction.
As for the issue of proof... I agree that this one experiment does not constitute undeniable proof of life on Mars. However, the results of the experiment met and exceeded pre-mission criteria for life detection. It was only after the fact that all of these other alternative explanations came about. I think that Ockham's Razor applies here: if it looks like a duck and quacks, it's probably a duck. Even if it isn't a duck, it deserves serious consideration.
Which leads me to this point: According to the expert that NASA paid to design and perform the experiment, there is positive evidence that there is life on Mars. However, NASA takes the opposite view: "The biology experiment produced no evidence of life at either landing site". This is not what their own chief scientist on the experiment in question believes. If he's a quack, why did they hire him?
So, if NASA has doubts about the validity of the results, then why aren't they be sending more life-detection experiments to Mars? Wouldn't that be the scientific thing to do? No other lander (past or planned) has direct life detection experiments. Why not?
I am now sure that NASA has found fairly conslusive evidence of water on Mars. Not becuase of the article sited in this story, but because NASA is having a press conference to announce "significant findings" tomorrow at 2:00 PM EST.
I think it's a pretty safe bet that there is water on Mars. Long John Silvers better be ready to pay up. I want my free shrimp and I want it tomorrow!
Agreed! I don't know about any ancient Mars civilizations, but it doesn't seem at all farfetched that simple life forms could thrive on Mars. Life finds a way to live. That's its job.
Concerning your comment on personal beliefs and religion in science, check out the "Religion, Philosophy. Society, and Science" section of this paper. Crazy stuff.
In the interest of time and space I'm going to ignore most of your troll and only address one of the issues you bring up, namely that the existance of extra terestrial life would immediately crush christianity. Ok first off , just becuase the Bible doesn't say something doesn't mean christians immediately say it doesn't exist. The Bible doesn't mention E.T.'s in one way or another therefore there is a possiblity they do exist. The great christain author C.S. Lewis dealy with the subject in great detail in his letters as well as the Sci-Fi series "Out of the Silent Planet". The gist of it was that God is a constant across the universe. Aliens may have a diffrent name and series of events that alowed them to realize his existance, i.e. their own bibilical history and consiquently thier own Bible. Of course this is all hypothetical... but i show's that Christianity could survive a alien discovery. All this being said, which religeous organizations are claiming with absolute certainity, that there is no alien life? My church never made this statment. I don't see how any Christian church can say it, and if it's not mentioned in the Bible in anyway it's not the churchs jub to say it.
Why are we still churning through this issue? Isn't ice a form of water? Wasn't ice disovered on mars in the 70's?
What gives? We've known for 30 years there's water on mars.
20OZ. of purified Marsian water for sale. I hope I could make someone smile today
What do you expect? Europeons bitch and moan until the cows come home about nationalism being unique to Americans. Newsflash McFly, it's everywhere in every country.
damn imperial weird units.
i have long wondered...if we do find that there is/was water on mars, then what? what will that do except fill encyclopedias and the minds of scientists? bottom line question is: if there is/has ever been water on mars, who cares? why dont we devote all these resources and money that is sending our government deeper into debt to something useful/beneficial to the country. it seems that this will simply earn us bragging rights.
Here's a bit of "misinformation". Damn that Nature propaganda.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
http://axonchisel.net/etc/space/mars-exp-rover-hig hlights.html
scroll down to the heading that says
[2004-02-02] MER Opportunity - First Hi-Res 360 Color Panoramic
and download one of the two highest resolution images. Using a picture viewer, zoom in on the bottom right hand area of the image until you see it. The high res images show the item in question in a fair amount of detail (relatively speaking that is). There are accusations that NASA deliberately drove over this thing and destroyed it. I presume they took some close up images of it before they crushed it, but they cannot be found posted on ANY website.
Robert
A lot of people have been pointing to 4 billion as the start of single-celled organisms -- just about as soon as the Earth stopped forming. The Carl Wose RNA studies that discovered the Archaea as a separate kingdom and other genetic clocks kinda suggest a 4 billion year origin. There are also fossils in Greenland that push the late 3's, but there has been a movement afoot (do a Google) to say those fossils are a crock -- they are heavily metamorphosized (sucked into the mantle and spit back out several times in the plate tectonic conveyor) that it has hard to say. I believe the earliest unambiguous stromatolite fossils are in the 2.5 billion year range along with the banded iron formations.
So the notion that "science" or a "consensus of scientists" put the origin of life at 4 billion years ago is a crock, especially in terms of the recent skepticsm about the Greenland fossils. But if I was in the "hot seat" and started arguing this point, I would have gotten some dirty looks from Regis and would have gotten the answer wrong (along with the panel of three "experts") for saying 500 million, final answer on the basis that life at 4 billion is controversial while a panoply of life at 500 million is pretty much scientific fact, I would have been out the prize money.
Michael Feldman on "Whad'ya Know?" has a solution 1) the prizes are small-value trinkets, and 2) he has this disclaimer warning the wizenheimers out there that the "official" answers are final and anyone who has a problem with that can "go get their own show."
What are you, some kind of Commie Lisp programmer?
Q: What's worse than finding a worm in a spherule cross-section?
A: Finding half a worm.
The evidence is in the fucking link I provided!
Alrighty then - let's go to your link. Gee, look what it says:
Shit, I don't know what's worse, the stubborn refusal to read the text provided or the ignorant mods that keep moding this tripe up.
Yeah, I agree. Next time read the text you link to.
Here is the photo with the Rotini pasta thingy pointed out
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This hype about water on Mars pretty much sounds like a version 2 of the story about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq ! I mean, come on, who cares ? You want to go there ? Ok, just go, anyway you have the guns -- and unfortunately not the brain to go with.
Ok, the last place we are going to think about seeing something similar is deep underground in limestone caves, but, for what it's worth, we do have one well known example or spherical minerals being formed abiogenically in about the right size range.
Don't yet have a hypothesis as to how such things might find themselves scattered in a rock matrix.
-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
... they've probably found evidence for life there.
how to use it? I want to use it now, and but I need know how to use it now! do anybody can tell me?
I said it was strong proof against gods existence, I never said it would 100% prove that he doesn't exist. And it's nice to see that you obviously didn't click the link, or even read the comment you are replying to (except maybe like 3 words) the church puts down science all the time, read the top part of my comment, about evolution, earth revolves around the sun, dinosaurs and the world being older than 5,000. If you really want to debate this just send me an e-mail (my address should be near my user name which should be 2 comments up, Zakabog).
And besides, it IS the churches job to interpret the bible, if it wasn't then the church would have to stick with the bible as it is, which is impossible, mostly illegal (uhh stone women who had sex before being married, I think you'd get thrown in jail for that) and then since the world is always changing and we're finding out new things every day, a lot of the bible becomes untrue, or out dated. Like our supreme court interprets the constitution and ammends it, the church interprets the bible (although it could quite a few amendments, but then it would no longer be the word of god, so when's he gonna come back down to earth and make a few hundred changes?)
several days later, we are STILL waiting on proof of your claim about falsified viking results.