"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."

Comments

Can we send rovers there please?

[CosmicRabbit]

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!

Re:Can we send rovers there please?

[Anonymous Coward]

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 it's '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 progresswise for many years. They have done so before, and religious of various stripes have usually been at the bottom of it.

Re:Sweet pics

[dotancohen]

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

Blah blah blah, wake me when they prove it.

[BlueKitties]

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.

Re:Blah blah blah, wake me when they prove it.

[Red Flayer]

then I'll be more enthushtaotiblastic

Dude, you're bitching about the fact we haven't encountered Martians yet, but you're speaking their fucking language.

Gorblobberschnart, man, relax... the martians are there, "they" just don't want us to know about them. ("They" meaning various 3- and 4-letter government agencies).

evidence of lake != lake of water

[Anonymous Coward]

So where is the evidence that the lake was made of water? could be any liquid really... epic fail

Re:If it's definitive evidence...

[MyLongNickName]

I 'don't know'.

Re:Sweet pics

[Locke2005]

Here you go

Re:It is CU Boulder not UC Boulder

[2short]

"It's called Colorado University, not the University of Colorado, so it would be kind of dumb to flip the acronym. "

Almost as dumb as correcting people about things you have no knowledge of and are, as it happens, wrong about. The University of Colorado goes by CU. Colorado State University goes by CSU. "Colorado University" doesn't go by anything, because it only exists in your head.