Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

NASA Orbiter Reveals Details of a Moister Mars

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the alliteration-makes-me-happy dept.

Matt_dk writes "NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has observed a new category of minerals spread across large regions of Mars. This discovery suggests that liquid water remained on the planet's surface a billion years later than scientists believed, and it played an important role in shaping the planet's surface and possibly hosting life."

21 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. Moister Mars by tpheiska · · Score: 5, Funny

    Moister Mars.... mmm.... sweet...

    --
    "wahts woring iwth my tyoping?"
    1. Re:Moister Mars by Pikiwedia.net · · Score: 4, Funny

      This means that there is water on Mars, which means that you can grow grain, which .. When can we expect the first bottle of martian whisky?

    2. Re:Moister Mars by Yvan256 · · Score: 2, Funny

      As soon as Duck Dodgers negotiates the deal with the queen.

  2. Moist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Due to probing?

  3. Mars: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Mars: What The Earth Will Look Like If We Fuck Up Too Much

    1. Re:Mars: by Verteiron · · Score: 5, Funny

      Venus: What The Earth Will Look Like If We Fuck Up Too Much In The Other Direction

      --
      End of lesson. You may press the button.
    2. Re:Mars: by confused+one · · Score: 4, Funny

      Mercury: What the Earth is eventually going to look like, no matter what we do.

    3. Re:Mars: by E++99 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Mercury: What the Earth is eventually going to look like, no matter what we do.

      You mean, unless Barack Obama is elected president.

  4. Re:Here's how it's going to play out by simaolation · · Score: 2, Funny

    Wars increase economic activity

    And why not? It sure worked wonders for Deep Space Nine and Voyager's ratings!

    mod +2 Star Trek Reference!

  5. Stop it. by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Every time someone claims ANYTHING about water on mars, it always trails with "There could have been/should/would been life!". Find me a fossil and then we'll talk.

    --

    "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
    1. Re:Stop it. by megamerican · · Score: 2, Informative

      Find me a fossil and then we'll talk.

      Leave John McCain alone!

      But in all seriousness, there is a reason why they use the word possibility. That means there may or may not be life. A fossil would mean there is proof of life. They say possiblity because it interests most people. Just saying they found more water than expected is boring. We already know there is water there. How much water there is doesn't mean much to most people.

      --
      If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
    2. Re:Stop it. by ChienAndalu · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What do you mean by fossil? Life on earth was consisting of creatures less complex than bacteria for a billion years, if earth dried out at that time, I doubt that you would find "fossils" very easily.

    3. Re:Stop it. by Paltin · · Score: 2, Informative

      That's sounds nice. However, finding fossils is not going to be easy. First, the relevant rocks on Mars are going to be rare, assuming that life was much more prevalent in the past. Geologic processes work at the surface to grind that surface into dust, meaning that we need to find a lucky outcrop.

      Then, we need to identify something conclusively as a fossil. Single celled organisms don't preserve very well, and the odds of something being preserved is really bad. On the earth, it has taken a long time and a lot of work to find good evidence of early single cellular life. And there are still debates about whether certain morphologies are organic or mineralogic in source. A lot of these questions are solved by pointing to modern microbes that look the same. Of course, with no modern Martian microbes, this line of reasoning is shut down w/o the additional assumption that life on Mars would resemble life on Earth.

      Also, remember that our tools for identifying anything on Mars are absolutely horrible. The rovers are great, but have you tried looking at some of the pictures that come out of them with the intention of identifying things? It's tough. Some recent work has been put into figuring out how good the information collecting of the rovers is by replicating them on the Earth. And uh, the results are not promising.

      Getting a fossil back from mars would be super, duper, mega expensive. It would be dumb as hell to just spend the money. We need to continue looking for small signs that point us in the direction of that possibility, which is exactly what has been going on and exactly what will continue to go on.

  6. Always "possible life" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "...and possibly life."

    Can't leave that out. Life is so easy to get started that it must have been everywhere there was water.

  7. Re TFA by Smivs · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yes, quite. Now regarding the actual article, what they seem to be saying is that there might have been a longer window for life to develop on Mars. Frankly this was always an unlikely event...Mars is and probably always has been dead. Sad, but true.
    Interesting bit of geology though, and it's amazing what we can find out from these probes.

    --
    Smivs on the intertubes!
    1. Re:Re TFA by E++99 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Now regarding the actual article, what they seem to be saying is that there might have been a longer window for life to develop on Mars. Frankly this was always an unlikely event...Mars is and probably always has been dead.

      Based on what? We have no idea. For all we know it may be virtually impossible for a planet to go 1,000 years with liquid water on its surface without acquiring life.

  8. wonderful by Lord+Ender · · Score: 2, Informative

    So just send an inflatable biosphere and some bacteria/moss/whatever, at let's see if that rock can still support life if it's given a little help.

    Why wait? A stable biosphere outside of earth orbit would be a monument to humanity. Let's do it.

    --
    A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
    1. Re:wonderful by Lord+Ender · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If life developed completely independently on Mars, it would be drastically different (on the cellular level) than anything we have here. If life is found on Mars which is cellularly similar to ours, we must conclude that one planet was the source and the other was "contaminated" via rocks or spacecraft or somesuch.

      In short, sending a biosphere to Mars would not do anything to hamper our ability to prove or disprove that life developed independently on Earth and Mars.

      And I doubt "environmentalists" (whatever that means) have the collective will and political power to interfere in NASA missions which don't directly harm particularly-cute animals. Outside of a few parts of California, fanatical environmentalist culture is pretty rare.

      --
      A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
  9. Re:Mmmmm... by CraftyJack · · Score: 4, Funny

    I have seen lakes that were so saline or full of some organism that they could not support life.

    They were so full of some organism that they could not support life? Yogi Berra, is that you?

  10. Fixed :Stop it. by Paltin · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Fixed version:

    What do you mean by fossil? Life on earth was consisting of creatures equally complex to bacteria for approximately 4 billion years, and these organisms are tough to find and difficult to identity

  11. Re:Mmmmm... by smaddox · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The sea is called "dead" because its high salinity prevents macroscopic aquatic organisms, such as fish and aquatic plants, from living in it, though minuscule quantities of bacteria and microbial fungi are present.

    In times of flood, the salt content of the Dead Sea can drop from its usual 35% salinity to 30% or lower. The Dead Sea temporarily comes to life in the wake of rainy winters. In 1980, after one such rainy winter, the normally dark blue Dead Sea turned red. Researchers from Hebrew University found the Dead Sea to be teeming with a type of algae called Dunaliella. The Dunaliella in turn nourished carotenoid-containing (red-pigmented) halobacteria whose presence is responsible for the color change. Since 1980, the Dead Sea basin has been dry and the algae and the bacteria have not returned in measurable numbers.
    Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea