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NASA Orbiter Reveals Details of a Moister Mars
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."
Moister Mars.... mmm.... sweet...
"wahts woring iwth my tyoping?"
Due to probing?
Mars: What The Earth Will Look Like If We Fuck Up Too Much
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
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?
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.
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.