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"Definitive Evidence" For Ancient Lake On Mars

TheSync writes "Eurekalert reports on 'definitive evidence' for an ancient water lake on Mars. A UC Boulder research team has discovered evidence of a shoreline on Mars of a 3 billion year-old lake 80 square miles in area and 1,500 feet deep (roughly the equivalent of Lake Champlain). Images came from the HiRISE instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Water carved a 30-mile-long canyon that opened up into a valley and forming a large delta during a time when Mars is generally believed to have been cold and dry. The lack of additional, lower shorelines, shows that the lake dried up very quickly. Of particular interest are the deltas adjacent to the lake. On Earth, deltas rapidly bury organic carbon and other biomarkers of life, making the Martian lake bed and delta a prime target for future searches for past life on the planet."

7 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Re:NASA has been hiding life on Mars for years by ammit · · Score: 2, Informative

    403 Permission Denied You do not have permission for this request /_articles/03-08-2004/images/Crinoid%20Martian%20Fossil.jpg Yes that does look suspiciously like a shrimp....

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  2. Re:NASA has been hiding life on Mars for years by miowpurr · · Score: 3, Informative

    Um, no. Read this http://drydredgers.org/martian_crinoid.htm to see the photo.

  3. Re:Sweet pics by dotancohen · · Score: 5, Informative

    Seriously, wouldn't it be neat if there was new evidence of water on Mars based on hi res pictures and someone would actually link to said pictures? That would be neat-o.

    Don't get me wrong, Defrosting Spots Over Polygonal Ground sounds interesting and all, but...

    Here you go, on the NASA site since 2003:
    http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2003/nov/HQ_03364_MGS_delta.html

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  4. It is CU Boulder not UC Boulder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    For some dumb reason University of Colorado at Boulder is called CU Boulder, not UC Boulder. I just moved to Boulder and get corrected all the time by people.

  5. Translation to standard units by daem0n1x · · Score: 1, Informative

    "Eurekalert reports on 'definitive evidence' for an ancient water lake on Mars. A UC Boulder research team has discovered evidence of a shoreline on Mars of a 3 billion year-old lake 207 square Km in area and 457 m deep (roughly the equivalent of Lake Champlain). Images came from the HiRISE instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Water carved a 48 Km-long canyon that opened up into a valley and forming a large delta during a time when Mars is generally believed to have been cold and dry. The lack of additional, lower shorelines, shows that the lake dried up very quickly. Of particular interest are the deltas adjacent to the lake. ON Earth, deltas rapidly bury organic carbon and other biomarkers of life, making the Martian lake bed and delta a prime target for future searches for past life on the planet."

  6. UC Boulder by bobs2pacsvegaswirled · · Score: 3, Informative

    All of the original Big-8 schools without a "state" in their names reverse their initials. Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska, and Oklahoma are CU, MU, NU, and OU respectively. There is no UC Boulder. It is CU Boulder.

  7. Re:Lake champlain? by Bigjeff5 · · Score: 2, Informative

    I believe they were talking about volume, though they didn't specify.

    Champlain is 30% larger than this lake by volume, but this lake is about 80% the size of Champlain by volume. Using the second figure, with a bit of hyperbole you can say "roughly equivalent". They like to do that kind of crap when describing stuff on Mars and other earth-ish sized solar and planetary satellites.

    Not the most accurate description, but it gives a rough idea of volume at least.

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