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NASA Says Mars Once "Drenched With Water"
NASA is currently holding a press conference (carried live on NASA TV) where they are discussing findings from the Mars rovers. They are saying that the crater that the second rover has landed in has convincing evidence that it was once drenched or covered in liquid water. They cite the tiny spherules, odd holes in the rocks, sulfur in the spectrometric analyses, and evidence of an iron sulfate hydrate (a hydrate is a chemical compound which includes water molecules in the crystal lattice). Update: 03/02 19:45 GMT by M : CNN has a story, or see the NASA press release.
... for CowboyNeil saving money on his auto insurance...
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
I wanted my free shrimp from Long John Silvers! Damn! Info Here
Bored? Why not join a decent mess
> sedimentary rocks are going to have fossils. ... and fossils means fuel, which in turn means they must have WMDs.
Welcome our tiny bacterial martian overlords
I love how this story was posted during the opening remarks of the press conference before they could go into much detail.
Blaze a trail to the New World
Some creative company wants to find, and market this 'untouched natural' water?
The Mothership
So Mars haven't taken a bath or shower in ages. No wonder they're finding crusty salt brine residue.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
"... the lense on the camera got really fogged up. That's when we really got suspicious."
If those rocks are sedimentary, there must have been water to carry sediment (unless some bored alien teenager did something weird).
litigious bastards
suck it sco!
Noah's lucky he didn't get stranded! ;-)
And then there are fossils. Which means the next NASA mission will be funded by Halliburton after all.
Doing the Right Thing should not be preempted by making a buck.
Egad!!! We may have just found a way to teraform mars! ;)
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
You're gonna slashdot NASA TV now, dammit! I fully expect my satellite feed to start stuttering and flashing to black in a few minutes...
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
To equip 2 Rovers with the best water detecting equipment known to man and how do you find water?
You get mud stuck to the tyres!
But in all seriosness, Good on NASA.
But it certainly makes a more life seeking mission like beagle 2 all the more important.
Well, I think you were forgetting about the whole alien overtone. Also, the water isn't there anymore. They are still looking for the big alien device to bring it all back.
Also, I'm voting for Arnold when he runs for King of Mars. I'd like him to fix the drought.
...don't question it!!!
This would be great news for the space program, as Bush would make the invasion and conquest of Mars a national priority.
Finding God in a Dog
and at the end of the conference, they'll pretend that it's over and say:
and one more thing... we found life on Mars!
Actually, an ellipsis usually has three periods. An ellipse is usually a conic section whose plane is not parallel to the axis, base, or generatrix of the intersected cone.
-no broken link
So can I marry a Martian microbe? The bible doesn't specifically prohibit that does it? Where does our president stand on this issue?
My religion can, but it depends on entirely different myths.
Finding God in a Dog
Rent the movie Spaceballs. It explains how to move water and other features from one planet to another.
"BEHOLD, CORN!!" - Dr. Weird, ATHF
> sedimentary rocks are going to have fossils. ... and fossils means fuel, which in turn means they must have WMDs.
Oh, no! Bush is going to liberate Mars!!
Before they even got to the good bits about the Ewoks...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Oooh... so maybe humans were originally on Mars... and they screwed up their planet with pollution, overuse of resources, etc., but managed to transport a few people to Earth to start over...
And maybe we'll look to terraform Mars and move there once we've hosed this planet too. The cycle continues...
Heh... yeah. Anyway, back to work now.
Obviously NASA knew this earlier, and held back their findings in deference to the all-powerful fast-food seafood lobby!!!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Want some cheese with that whine?
Stupid sexy Flanders.
It's burried in huge subterranean (submartian?) cavens. These are all interconnected. Then there's this huge nuclear reactor, which if turned on, will terraform the surface in less time than it would take the governor of California to suffocate in the present Martian atmosphere.
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
>Right... and fossil fuels mean more greenhouse
;)
>gasses, which causes the temperature to rise...
>Egad!!! We may have just found a way to teraform
> mars!
We're still working on Earth.
Oh I love being able to set a caption from within the URL!
Add some mass to the planet for added gravtiy, massive heat increase to melt the ice caps and creat liquid water...
Make it pay per view to keep it profitable!
We can call it a Weapon of Mass Creation!
WE CAN'T LOSE!
...and your Sea Monkeys (tm) will come to life!
Well, if you believe the ads run by cable companies then the mere mention of water should cause your signal to go out.
The grandparent poster must work for Diebold.
2) ???
3) Life on Mars
4) Profit!
Marvin's going to be awfully mad when we come there to drill for oil.
Chris Knight is my hero.
Actually, I watched this documentary once with Arnold Schwarzenegger where they showed where all the water is. It's in giant ice blocks in this huge cave. There's also an alien device designed to release it as vapor, thereby creating an atmosphere on Mars.
they had found some Spice.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
NASA has never lost a human in the sun, therefore a 1.5 year mission to the surface of the sun is perfectly safe as well.
Fossils aren't that rare. If you wait outside a Tom Jones concert a few of them might even hit on you.
The costs of shipping a battery to NASA from Mars would not be covered under warranty.
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
ThisIsAnExampleAccountGL@yahoo.com
If there was water, there could have been snow. If there was snow, there could have been snowmen. Hence there could have been life.
Steve Squires for President!
Today President Bush announced an emergency $5million to fund writers for employees at NASA upon hearing their speeches.
Seriously though, very cool. =) But my god people, get WRITERS!
You blabbed Quaid. You blabbed about mars. Now we are going to having to kill you. I'm just following Cohagen's orders.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
so you're saying we should nuke the entire planet first, right?
(kidding!)
I'm still amazed some corporate sponsor didn't get their name on one of those rovers. I'd think some water company would be all over that opportunity.
(j/k)
Omnes arx vestrum sunt adiuncta nobis.
...then it's very likely fossils are in sedimentary rocks...
I wander about religious implications of finding fossils or hopefully even life on Mars. I can imagine all sorts of new funny religions popping up as a result of this. Any of religious nuts want to comment on this?
> first forms of life on earth were colloidal clay > organisms Mister Bill perhaps? Oh No!
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> No Manned Missions should be sent to Mars until we
> are reasoably certain that no life presently
> exists on the Red Planet.
Shit..you watch too much tv.. if there was anything to worry about, Spirit and Opportunity would have been fazered to death by Klingon war patrols already. Anyone knows that. Send the Astronauts!!
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
I presume you mean especially if you go at night..
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
fyad fyad lol
Of course, if you want to get REALLY technical, the only thing anyone can prove is that they exist. Cogito Ergo Sum. I think therefore I am. It runs like this:
I am having thought. I know I am having thoughts. Therefore something must be having these thoughts and I will call this "I". Thefore "I" exists. Beyond that you can't _prove_ anything else. It might be the matrix for all you know.
But no one likes to get that technical.
You *can't* prove a negative.
Prove it...
I am really tired of people "looking for life on (insert planet/moon name here)." If it can't jump up and say "Howdy!", prance around in a skipmy outfit like that Vulcan chick from Enterprise, or shoot a ray-gun with a tentacled appendage, who cares! Evolution is king, baby: let's not coddle those weak little Martian organisms. If they can't handle the competetion with some strapping Earth-born organisms...fuck em!
Think about how long it takes to terraform a planet. Shouldn't we have started by now? It's past time to seed some plants to eat the carbon dioxide, release some oxygen and let them begin digging the water out of the earth and releasing it into the atmosphere.
Speaking of plants, I wonder if tossing cactus/sensamilla seeds out of a baloon bourne lander would be a good way of finding water. Those plants are pretty hardy, and anywhere the plants start to grow would potentially have water sources near the surface. I bet I could devise some wicked experiments to carry out on Mars with plants that were modified genetically to withstand the harsher conditions.
If only the scientific community would grow some gonads we would have a great decade of science and experimentiton ahead of us.
What is the matter officer? I have obeyed all of your silly Earth laws!
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
the SPICE!
Frank was here...
went to get beer.
"In fact it's perfectly safe," said one of the officials,
"it's built so that even if the ship does break up, the
storage holds cannot possibly be breached."
Young Zaphod Plays It Safe
Peace and love, y'all
it was a dust bunny.
It's the easter bunny.
You don't think he hides on Earth 364 day a year do you?