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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."
This isn't news to those of us who investigate NASA cover ups of alien life. Look at this picture of what I call a "space shrimp".
NASA used the rock grinder on the rover to destroy this invaluable fossil!
[Redundant comment here]
Always proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
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...
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
A three billion year old lake? Geez slashdot, can't you be any quicker with your stories?
So knowing how on Earth water and life are so intrinsically associated, this seems like the perfect spot to send a future rover mission. In the past we got some inconclusive results from biochemical analysis of the soil in more arid zones of the red planet. Perhaps on this spot we can be more lucky?
Also, the proof of early existence of liquid water on the planet also hints at a denser atmosphere and warmer temperatures on those times. This is very promising!
How is definite evidence different from regular evidence?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
is somewhere around 435 square miles, and 400 feet deep. In which way are the two alike?
I used to get excited about all of these Mars jazz... when I was a kid; after every other Popsci mag I used to read blathered about new evidence for life/water/robots on Mars, I started getting tired of it. Years later, they're still blathering about it; frankly, I'm tired of it. Come back when you splash land a rover into a giant pool of water which is then eaten by Mars sharks, then I'll be more enthushtaotiblastic.
"Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad." [Ecclesiastes 7:3]
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.
So where is the evidence that the lake was made of water? could be any liquid really... epic fail
Why are we still putting quotes around 'definitive evidence' ?
"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."
The linked article appears to be slashdotted, there is a mirror at http://eurekalert.precor-incorporated.com/
Oh, you mean, "Standard Units" for scientists or countries that don't use the imperial system.
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
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.
Anonymous Coward is dead. Long live Anonymous Cowardon.
... its a shoreline? By the old boat launches and bait shops?
Have gnu, will travel.
Just a note that the University of Colorado at Boulder is abbreviated as CU not UC.
there. The reason is because Mars CAN be terriformed by plummitting a a few ammonia based asteroids from further out as well as a couple of ice based asteroids. It obviously would not occur overnight, but, once vasmir occurs, I would not be surprised to see us sending exploratory missions to locate resources on these asteroids. BUT, once life is discovered there, the west will not proceed with that (though I suspect more than a few other countries would push for it regardless of the life).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
There is some atmosphere on Mars and 3 billion years is a long time. Shouldn't all signs of an ancient shoreline have eroded by now? What am I missing here?
of rEality. Keep
Way too long ago to matter tho. Initially they sent a rover to earth and found no life here then, and that it was uninhabitable for them, so they went off to another planet far far away. The rover they sent here contained bacteria from their planet, some of which adapted and became the first forms of life here - thus we are all descended from martians. Not many of them left to go to this new planet - many of them didn't believe the planet was going to end, and the birthrates dropped there so the population dwindled. The remaining few battled among themselves to make it onto the escape ship but even then they didn't believe that birthrates would be any better. The trip to the new planet was so long that the only chance of success involved breeding during the journey, so those left behind never knew whether it succeeded or not. Once they got to the new planet, it wasn't habitable enough for them, it was close, but within 5-10 years they all perished of stress and fatigue. Many bacteria were successful on their new planet and changed the course of history there - killing off whole species and creating new species. In the same way that the later invasion of earth from an extra solar planet killed off the dinosaurs here. The neanderthals were alien to earth, and when they arrived they changed the course of primate evolution here - allowing humans to rise, but ultimately couldn't adapt to this environment. I'm sure I could make up more stuff but at the end of the day does it really matter?
Define "Definitive".
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Why is this definitively water? Wouldn't any flowing liquid leave a similar deposit? Would a molten sulphur (or something) flow do the same?
Unfortunately, that image has been very thoroughly debunked. Look at this picture from which yours originated. It's rather shocking.
I still think that the best spot to send a rover to would be the most hazardous of all places to do so. That is to the bottom of the deepest part of the largest and deepest canyon on the planet, the Valles Marinaris. This canyon is deeper than the Earth's Grand Canyon.
It is known that the bottom of the Grand Canyon has a microclimate all its own, wetter and warmer considerably than that of the plateau surface above it. At six miles deep, consider our own planet. The atmosphere on our planet has a pressure density at six miles above it that is not much thicker than that of Mars at its 'mean sea level'. That is why climbers of Mt Everest need oxygen to survive for long, and at 29000 feet this is thousands of feet LOWER than the elevation distance from floor to rim of the Valles Marinaris!
For this reason I state that pressure density of the Martian atmosphere at the bottom of the Valles Marinaris will be more dense than any other place on that planet. Add to this that winds on the surface of the plateau above probably have limited interchange with the air on the bottom and the inescapable conclusion is that even the composition of the atmosphere on the bottom may be quite different from that outside the canyon.
If there is any surface water or flowing water on the planet it will very likely be in sheltered pools on the bottom of the Valles Marinaris. If there is refugee life on this rock, that is also the most likely place. Human visitors should be warned, however, that life even here may be ravenously hungry so should take precautions.
That said, this valley should also be protected from contamination from visiting spacecraft lest the bugs it finds be our own. That further said, it is possible that assuming panspermia of sorts, life here could have originated on Mars in the first place, especially seeing Earth itself underwent several episodes of global glaciation like Mars today. How do we know that during our own global glaciation that we were not a 'red planet' as well, with red dust from volcanic eruptions covering our own water ice? So their bugs may look like OUR bugs and fool at least some of our scientists for honest reasons into thinking that contamination had taken place..... somehow.
Other less scrupulous 'patho-skeptik' so called 'scientists' would probably take the same position knowing the opposite to be true for more sinister reasons: "If life was found outside Earth, then religion ON Earth would maybe fail under logical testing and cause religious wars so better to deny the fact as long as plausible deniability exists.... these individuals, knowing the truth, would fiercely oppose any serious Martian exploration; or "If life was found indigenous to Mars, then this would be against the 'prevailing so called wisdom or party line' that establishment scientists were supposed to follow if they wanted to keep their careers"!
Either one of these kinds of so-called 'scientists', and there are probably others that I have not thought of, in great numbers or influence could and would try to set us back from progressing for many years. They have done so before, and religious of various stripes have usually been at the bottom of it.
You know, like methane, or anything that is liquid at those temperatures.
But is *absolutely MUST be water*!!!!1!!11one, mustn't it?
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.