More Evidence for Early Oceans on Mars

DestroyAllZombies writes "More news about Mars. The good news: New Scientist reports that more analysis of Rover data supports the claims for widespread oceans in Mars' distant past. The bad news, from the article: 'An ocean of water once wrapped around Mars, suggests the discovery of soil chemicals by NASA's rovers. But the same chemicals also indicate that life was not widespread on the planet at the time the ocean was present.'"

Comments

Bad news?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it bad news to learn that there was never any life on Mars? Wouldn't it be much worse news to learn that life was common there and was utterly wiped out?

I think most people would agree that a planet-wide extinction of all life would qualify as 'bad news'.

Re:Bad news?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it bad news to learn that there was never any life on Mars? Wouldn't it be much worse news to learn that life was common there and was utterly wiped out?

I think most people would agree that a planet-wide extinction of all life would qualify as 'bad news'.

Neither is good news or bad news. Science exists to quantify and explain, not to hope for something. If hope that life existed on Mars is the major reason for your research, you aren't being a scientist. You are being a cheerleader.

It would certainly be interesting if life existed on other planets. It might give us insight into how life started here on Earth. But the opposite is also true. But we need the information first!

If the water was there, where did it go?

[antifoidulus]

Water on earth tends to get "recycled" constantly: sea water evaporates makes clouds which make rain which eventually gets into rivers which go back out to the ocean etc. If Mars was covered with water, where did this water go?