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Mars Rovers Find More Evidence of Water
loconet writes "Space.com and JPL are reporting that the Mars Rovers might be on the verge of confirming that large amounts of water once flowed in a region of Mars that has looked curiously dry until now. Such a finding could be comparable to their discovery earlier this year of an ancient shallow sea on the other side of the red planet. Opportunity has found lumpy, odd rock unlike anything its seen to date. The rock concentration seems much rougher than the 'blueberries' found earlier on in the mission. Researchers hope to swing by the rock on the way out of Endurance for further study. 'It could just be one big mass of concretions,' Squyres said. 'I just don't know.' Meanwhile, Spirit, which has now climbed about 10 yards up a hillside, getting above the Gusev plain, found an interesting rock dubbed 'Longhorn'. Both rovers have been exploring more than twice as long as they were designed to last. And even though the Martian winter is at its coldest, engineers are confident that the rovers will continue, despite showing signs of mortality."
Isn't it possible, since Mars does not have a thick atmosphere like earth, that rocks that are found on Mars's surface are not nessicarly from mars?
Your mammas flamebait.
This is fascinating news, and seems to confirm many astronomer's / xenogeologist's wildest hopes for the Red Planet. But, and forgive my ignorance, where has the water all gone? The atmosphere is mostly CO2, I believe... so, somewhere, there's a bunch of H2 missing. And whether or not Mars ever supported life, I doubt it ever hosted an ecosystem on a scale large enough to convert that much water. Where'd it go? How'd it get there? Anyone?
And Arthur C. Clarke believes Martian life exists to this day. It's easy to see that the so-called spiders look life-like, and I'd like very much for that to turn out to be the case. Mind you, the human brain is pretty good forming patterns out of just about anything.
"Why can't everyone just be straight with me?"
"Because we live in a bendy world, dear."
Could that "lumpy" rock be a fossil of a ?
Maybe we deserve this world ?
Exactly. Beagle was on a mission for life, but the Rovers are a geological lab on wheels. They are unable to search for life. This annoys me now since the mission is on. I really hope NASA will send another rover now that the first ones were such a huge success.
"...found an interesting rock dubbed 'Longhorn'."
I can't even begin to count the number of anti-MS comments, but you have all overlooked the most likely explanation for this: a member of the Rover team is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, whose mascot happens to be the longhorn.
You are correct, kinda. Mars is a little different than Earth if you examine its orbit and its tilt, which has a lot to do with the 'global winter' that everyone seems to be talking about.e asons/seasons.htm
This might help:
http://cmex-www.arc.nasa.gov/CMEX/data/MarsEssy/s
"False hope is why we'll never run out of natural resources!" - Lewis Black
Everyone is so excited about the possibility of liquid water on Mars, but has anyone considered that it might be some other type of liquid? Something with different properties that would explain the odd patterns?
This article intrigued me, but why is everyone so focused on water? Could the carbon dioxide or some other atmospheric gas be condensing in the cold north to form the odd runoff channels on the rock. This rock faces away from the sun and would therefore be one of Mars' coldest points. Could that be why there is little other than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? Could wind erosion and perhaps even blast shockwaves from meteorites have been causing the errosive-looking paterns in such an enviroment? With the atmosphere being lighter, wouldn't meteorites hit harder and more frequently than Earth? Finally, can we draw any similarities to our own moon's surface, a place which we know much more about?
(I ask because I have no idea)
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Opportunity is planned to go to its heatshield after it has finished geological surveys of the Endurance Crater and winter is over - the crater is shielding it somewhat from cooling winds, and since heating the rover to compensate for these winds is very expensive electrically, it is likely that the heatshield will only be seen if the rover survives the winter fully operational and something more interesting outside of Endurance crater hasn't been found.
More free shrimp?
http://www.ljsilvers.com/press/freeshrimp.htm
....And showed some amazing geological formations that looked like dried riverbeds and water-carved deep canyons, most serious planetary astronomers assumed that some time in the distant past water flowed on Mars. The fact that the two Mars Exploration Rovers has shown that it's more than likely we did once have liquid water on Mars means that the chances are good that life of some sort did evolve on that planet, though when the planet's atmosphere thinned the surface water vanished and what water is left on that planet is likely found about 1 meter or more under the surface of the planet.
My guess is that right now what the two MER's have seen will help guide the final design of the Mars Science Laboratory lander, a larger lander (about the size of a subcompact car) powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) for operations lasting over a year and fitted with all kinds of highly advanced probes, including possibly a soil sampler that uses a special drill to probe up to 1,000 mm into the ground for soil samples. I believe that MSL will likely provide the definite answer on just how much simple lifeforms are still existing on Mars living off the water trapped in the soil.