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NASA's Gypsum Find Clear Evidence There Was Water On Mars
First time accepted submitter RCC42 writes "The Opportunity rover has found evidence that liquid water once flowed on Mars, through the discovery of gypsum — a mineral that can only be formed in the presence of water. Though other evidence in the past has suggested highly acidic water on Mars, this is the first evidence for water with a pH suitable for life as we know it."
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Iran is claiming the find after taking over the mars rover controlled from tehran...
We can no longer ignore the need now to send people to mars to establish a base and mine. With this discovery, Mars can now supply all of our drywall needs for the next several centuries!
This space available.
Has NASA filed a patent for Gypsum now? Are they that desperate for funding? :-)
Years Of Drone Flights Find No Iranian Nuclear Weapons Program
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2011/12/years-of-drone-flights-find-no-iranian-nuclear-weapon-program.html
I don't want to be rash, but I'm beginning to draw some conclusions.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
HOH HOH HOH!
Are we talking just a thin crust, or are we talking "gypsum quarry" size formations?
The reason I ask, is gypsum contains absurd quantities of chemically bound water. If mars has a higher calcium ion concentration than earth does, and had liquid oceans at one time, it is possible that with the carbon dioxide rich atmosphere and lack of techtonic plate movement that a sizable quantity of the ocean turned into "concrete" rather than drying up.
This would mean that much of the light elements (hydrogen, etc) might have escaped being blown off the atmosphere.
This is exciting news for science fiction writers that like to dream about terraforming. Creating techtonic activity would create the geomagnetic dynamo the planet needs, and as a consequence of the subduction and volcanism, huge quantities of water vapor would be expelled as a volcanic gas.
About all the planet would need would be ammonia, for the missing nitrogen. (Doesn't titan have an ammonia atmosphere? Wink, nudge.)
This does not mean the planet would go from lifeless desert to habitable overnight, as the gasses relased would be inhospitable to oxygen dependant life like us, but certain algae species like chlorella can survive in 100% C02 atmospheric concentrations as long as there is sunlight and water. Chlorella is well researched, fully genomically sequenced, and already has engineered varieties. A strain intended to rapidly convert the atmosphere to something a bit less toxic would actually be fairly plausible.
Now that it has finally done a good job, it can come home....
XKCD
runaway climate, oceans evaporate, a couple of million years later some beings from Europe may wonder, was there ever life on this desert planet? And a next round of silliness starts again.
I'm sick to death with robots telling us that this or that exists, even with super high resolution photos its still as boring as fuck, and we never fucking ever see the video footage from the craft, so we can never ever get washed up in even the romance of the planet, all we ever get back are still images and a few pages of text.
Let me tell you what me and anyone else on slashdot really give a fuck about.
US GETTING THE FUCK TO MARS and BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT SERVICE TO AND BACK FROM THE RED PLANET.
Until then, I don't give a fuck if there is a rock that looks exactly like Teller's ass on Mars the size of Mount Rushmore, or if there is a red Petrified rock in the shape of a large M.
So fuck off NASA, and until you actually build and launch a sustainable craft that can take ME to Mars and the Moon I will care APSOLUTLEY SHIT FUCK ALL about you or what you do anymore.
~ Former NASA Fan.
Now I know who will be the first to industrialize Mars.
When done playing Handy, you are free more gay than they wwel-known Many users of BSD To decline for so that you don't
Persians first calculated the volume of the earth, as a sphere. Invented spherical trigonometry, and all kinds of things.
Remember all that "Arab scientists and mathematicians" kind of talk? None of 'em were arabs. Mostly Persians, with roots in Khorasan - writing in Arabic.
It's similar to calling Sir Issac Newton a "Latin Physicist" because of the language used in the "Principia".
Let me guess. Isaac Newton was actually Persian?
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/20111207a.html
minimal info here, apparently they can measure the ratio of Ca/SO4
I havn't seen any one describe why gypsum can't be formed in the absence of water - isn't it supposed to be hard to proove a negative ?
I just know who's going to be blamed for it.
A tune comes to mind, what was that band called, "Flotsam and Gypsum"
...but there are a couple of moons with surfaces covered in water ice RIGHT NOW which have liquid water below the surface, so it's hard for me to get excited.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Plenty of evidence from orbiters and rovers. Current liquid water underground is unknown. The new fluid channels seen now and then could be something other than water.
I'd really like to think, with all the tax dollars going to NASA, that they would consider water (in the form of snow & ice) on the poles as evidence of water.
The trick is they're studying possible existence of liquid water on the surface at some point in Mars's history. Ice and water vapor are not liquid water.
So how did the ice and water vapor get there then ... ?
But since the ice/snow on the poles grows & shrinks, then it's already clear that the water exists in non-frozen form at times. To think that it goes from solid to gas instantly without any liquid form on a planet (Mars) where there are dry river beds, would be logical. (NASA's known about the river beds since 1998 at least, see http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap980205.html)
In other news, scientists discover a way to form gypsum in the absence of water.
"Mostly Persians, with roots in Khorasan - writing in Arabic."
"Needless to say, Iranian civilization ain't what it used to be."
I just have to clarify that Khorasan is modern day Afghanistan - It was part it was part of Persia, but it isn't Iran. Its a common misconception that people think Persia = Iran. In fact, Persia included (at a time) a lot, of not all of, the ---istan countries. "istan" is the the Persian suffix meaning land. Analogous to Scotland, Ireland.
My two cents of knowledge.. free for you!
Probably deposited on dust as ice in the early Solar System and chemically bonded with various minerals. When Mars formed, some water came with it. The rest was driven away by the Sun.
You're starting to sound like a lobbyist for Iran with these silly fanboi comments.
I recommend sitting the next few Iran stories out.
I kind think we should focus or efforts on more terrestrial matters
Uh... offsite backup IS a terrestrial matter.
Even martians had illegal aliens put up their (gypsum) drywall.
It's not common that you'll hear a scientist say this, but that is absolutely impossible. It is not possible under any circumstances to form gypsum in the absence of water. Gypsum is a hydrous mineral - it contains molecules of water in it's structure. So even if you took Feynman's trip "all the way to the bottom", you'd have to assemble an atom of sulphur and four of oxygen (to form a sulphate ion ; you're in Feynman territory, so don't worry about the charges), then add a calcium atom (now you can balance the charges if you want. Then add two molecules of water (as atoms, or as molecules ; it doesn't matter) ... and that's your anhydrous synthesis contaminated with substantial quantities of water. And we haven't even got onto getting the ions and molecules into the right positions (also essential for it to be "gypsum" and not anything other mineral).
Where is my packet of dehydrated DHMO? Ah, under the tin of tartan paint.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
I knew this planet supported life before ours a long time ago.... however, I have to ask, why try to worry about that planet instead of fixing ours....which leads me to believe that they know something will happen (asteroid, apocalypse, etc...) and are thinking about "we have no choice so lets start that journey now...."
I am concerned about this planet that is now dead (almost) and we are trying to reterraform it to sustain life..... it died for a reason (too close to the sun?)...