Strange Globs Could Signal Water On Mars

Joshua.Niland writes "Strange globs seen on the landing strut of the Phoenix Mars lander could be the first proof that modern Mars hosts liquid water. Images from the robotic craft show what appear to be liquid droplets growing, merging, and dripping on the lander's leg over the course of a Martian month. Just when is NASA going to fix that leaking roof on the backlot?"

Comments

Science has a high burden of proof.

[Beelzebud]

Oh the precious tax dollars!
You do realize that scientists have a higher burden of proof, right? They aren't going to say it's water until they analyze it and can confirm with certainty what it is.
Damn right it's my tax dollars at work, and millions of us approve of it.

Re:Science has a high burden of proof.

[ScrewMaster]

Damn right it's my tax dollars at work, and millions of us approve of it.

Well ... those of us who understand the logic behind science and the scientific method most certainly do. I'm just not sure how many of us fit that description, anymore.

Re:Science has a high burden of proof.

[MMC Monster]

The problem is, those of us that approve are rather silent.

Just at work, a highly educated person was complaining how a "third world" country was "wasting" money on space exploration rather than feeding and sheltering the poor.

Re:Science has a high burden of proof.

[Just because I'm an]

Depends on how you frame your purpose. It's a bit like giving a man trout as opposed to teaching him to fish. Also why can't they feed the poor *and* do space exploration.

Personally I think space exploration is very important. Eventually we're going to have to get off this rock to survive. Whether by resource depletion, disease, catastrophic event (something big crashes into Earth, supervolcanoes go apeshit or sun going supernova) something's going to make our time here limited and the sooner we find viable ways of travelling, finding other hospitable planets (or moons) sustaining ourselves and all the other things we haven't figured out yet the better. Yes some of what we do could probably be done better, or more efficiently, but we've got to keep trying. I'm also not a fan of just letting the USA and Russia play this game. I think India the ESA and China all have a valid reason to play the game too. I'm not sure which 3rd world country was being referred to but all the involved nations so far have poor hungry people they could be helping out.

Just because they have a space program doesn't mean they can't do that too.

Re:Science has a high burden of proof.

[Narishma]

Yes, there will always be starving people, so if you wait until everyone isn't starving before doing anything, you'll end up doing nothing.

Silly

[clarkkent09]

You'd think any lander we send up there looking for water would have the ability to analyze any liquid droplets growing, merging, and dripping on the lander's leg over the course of a Martian month.

Another example of why the "why send humans, robots can do everything just as well" idea is bogus. If that was an astronaut up there this would be resolved in a minute, not a month.

Re:Silly

[Morty]

Sending an astronaut is many times as expensive, since we need more safety, need to keep the astronaut alive during the long trip over, and need to bring the astronaut back. After all, we have already sent the lander, but are not scheduled to send people for many years. So it's probably better to send the machine and wait a month than to wait the many years before we can send a person.

It also helps to know a lot about the environment before we risk sending an astronaut.

Re:More Proof...

[Yvan256]

Saying that "martians created humans" only takes the "why do we exist?" question and changes it to "why do martians exist?".

You didn't really answer anything, the whole "why does life exists" question still remains.

Re:JPL's next grant application: is it water?

[BlueStrat]

Dear JPL. While we are thrilled about your discovery, Mars isn't going anywhere. We are trying to save the economy and lesten the impact of this economic down turn so that we can spend even more money on you guys in the future. Spending 10 billion on machinists creates more jobs than spending 10 billion on rocket scientists. Hope you understand.

Funding Agency.

Dear _Funding Agency_,

We here at JPL understand your position. Since you feel that the space program has no benefits worth funding, we'll be sending over a large fleet of trucks to collect all your computers and other technology made possible by research connected with said space program.

We understand your need to keep operating however, and in the spirit of mutual understanding you've shown us, we will be sending you Univac for your future computational needs. Please have a very large building with a large electrical power system and a team of vacuum-tube replacement technicians ready.

Best of luck,

JPL

Wait... liquid???

[Murpster]

So this is supposedly water, or some other liquid, that's forming on exposed metal on a generally windy planet, and we're seeing photos over a 36 day period. Then why is it that there are quite a few persistent blobs that stay in the same place with basically the same shape over that period, while new ones form? Have any of you ever seen water droplets on your car retain their position and shape over 36 hours, much less 36 days? Isn't Mars generally pretty windy? Shouldn't there be much more rearrangement of blobs between these photos if we were looking at something like rain or condensation? If you showed me a picture series like that and said was a picture of a plant on Earth, I'd look at the spreading blobs and immediately tell you it was showing a spreading infestation of scale bugs (or some mealybug relative perhaps). Not saying this is evidence of life on Mars, but I'm interested to hear an explanation of how exposed liquid droplets on a metal surface outdoors can be persistent for that long, while more and more of them appear as time goes on.