Rover Finds Ancient Streambed On Martian Surface

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Rover Finds Ancient Streambed On Martian Surface

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday September 27, 2012 @10:35AM from the low-flow-planet dept.

sighted writes "NASA reports that its Curiosity rover mission has found evidence that a stream once ran vigorously — and for a sustained amount of time — across the area on Mars where the rover is driving. There is, of course, earlier evidence for the presence of water on Mars, but NASA says this evidence, images of rocks containing ancient streambed gravels, is the first of its kind."

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Water, or some other fluid? by TWX · 2012-09-27 10:36 · Score: 4, Interesting

There are other fluids than water that can sustain a semicolloidal solution or carry sediments. I assume that scientists now have to figure out what fluid flowed, rather than simply assuming that it had to be water.

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1. Re:Water, or some other fluid? by jslarve · 2012-09-27 10:39 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Probably never occurred to those rocket scientists and geologists at NASA. :)
2. Re:Water, or some other fluid? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-27 10:42 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  What else would it be besides water? Liquid Hydrogen?
  Considering the place were Mars occupies in our Solar System, I don't see how it could be anything other than water.
3. Re:Water, or some other fluid? by rubycodez · 2012-09-27 10:46 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  it wasn't a liquid form of the atmosphere, carbon dioxide goes to solid. wasn't the 3% nitrogen, too warm. certainly not the argon, also too warm. maybe the NASA boffins know a bit more than you?
4. Re:Water, or some other fluid? by yincrash · 2012-09-27 10:48 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Both mercury and bromine could be liquid at reasonable temperatures. Both are also just as unlikely to be in amounts to have streams.
5. Re:Water, or some other fluid? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-27 11:03 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe and Oxygen is the third most abundant element in the universe. The only thing splitting them is Helium which is inert. All other things being equal the likelihood that a particular liquid at 'reasonable temperatures' is water is orders of magnitude more likely to be water than mercury or bromine.
6. Re:Water, or some other fluid? by dreamchaser · 2012-09-27 11:10 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  There are other fluids than water that can sustain a semicolloidal solution or carry sediments. I assume that scientists now have to figure out what fluid flowed, rather than simply assuming that it had to be water.
  I take it you've never heard of Occam's Razor. Given the composition of Mars and other evidence gathered to date water is by FAR the most likely substance to have caused this.
7. Re:Water, or some other fluid? by RabidReindeer · 2012-09-27 11:23 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  There are other fluids than water that can sustain a semicolloidal solution or carry sediments. I assume that scientists now have to figure out what fluid flowed, rather than simply assuming that it had to be water.
  Zap it with a laser and conduct at spectrum analysis on it and see what elements pop up.
  Without proclaiming any expertise, I'd say that the erosion and eddy patterns left behind would be informative, since they would be indicative of the viscosity of the liquid. The pattern of sediment would drop hints towards its density. Water, CO2 and other highly-vaporous substances would not leave much, if any discernible residue or precipitate compared many other fluids. Some fluids would react with certain payload elements, other with different payload elements (in the structural meaning of the term "element", not the chemical one).
  There's a lot you can learn just ogling the pictures.
  THEN zap it with a laser!
8. Re:Water, or some other fluid? by ColdWetDog · 2012-09-27 11:30 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  You're doing it wrong.
  Try looking at the closeup image. You know, the one that shows the nice, rounded stones. Just like the ones you'd find in a stream bed.
  
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9. Re:Water, or some other fluid? by SternisheFan · 2012-09-27 11:39 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Linked NASA photo's text:
  "Remnants of Ancient Streambed on Mars NASA's Curiosity rover found evidence for an ancient, flowing stream on Mars at a few sites, including the rock outcrop pictured here, which the science team has named "Hottah" after Hottah Lake in Canada’s Northwest Territories. It may look like a broken sidewalk, but this geological feature on Mars is actually exposed bedrock made up of smaller fragments cemented together, or what geologists call a sedimentary conglomerate. Scientists theorize that the bedrock was disrupted in the past, giving it the titled angle, most likely via impacts from meteorites. The key evidence for the ancient stream comes from the size and rounded shape of the gravel in and around the bedrock. Hottah has pieces of gravel embedded in it, called clasts, up to a couple inches (few centimeters) in size and located within a matrix of sand-sized material. Some of the clasts are round in shape, leading the science team to conclude they were transported by a vigorous flow of water. The grains are too large to have been moved by wind. A close-up view of Hottah reveals more details of the outcrop. Broken surfaces of the outcrop have rounded, gravel clasts, such as the one circled in white, which is about 1.2 inches (3 centimeters) across. Erosion of the outcrop results in gravel clasts that protrude from the outcrop and ultimately fall onto the ground, creating the gravel pile at left. This image mosaic was taken by Curiosity's 100-millimeter Mastcam telephoto lens on its 39th Martian day, or sol, ..."
10. Re:Water, or some other fluid? by dreamchaser · 2012-09-27 11:54 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  First, water is required for life as we know it, but the presence of water is no guarantee for life. Second, this is not a mission to determine if there are traces of life or not. Curiosity is mostly a geological mission, with an emphasis of finding out if there were ever conditions suitable to sustain life as we know it That's not anywhere near the same thing as finding proof there ever was or even if there still is life on Mars.
11. Re:Water, or some other fluid? by SternisheFan · 2012-09-27 12:19 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Whoops! Curiosity's real main mission:
  "Curiosity’s primary mission will be to gather geological and environmental data from the Martian surface to determine whether the planet has ever offered environmental conditions favorable for life --and collect data for a manned mission. It will do this by travelling around a particularly promising site called Gale Crater, which has three miles of exposed geological strata, or rock layers like we have in the Grand Canyon. By drilling into these rocks and sampling them, scientists can tell quite a bit about global processes that formed the planet --including the role of water in its creation and the possibility of microbial life." http://energy.gov/articles/powering-curiosity-lab-tech-goes-mars
12. Re:Water, or some other fluid? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-27 12:23 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  What different position makes something other than water plausible? liquid forms of things we think of as "gasses" require it to be way out there, liquid forms of what we think of as "solids" require it to be way in there. There's a fairly small set of things liquid within the range of reasonable temperatures, and the obvious non-water choices are far more chemically complex.
  Granted, our understanding of mechanics of evolving planetary systems is rudimentary, theoretical, and subject to massive revision over the next decade as we observe more exoplanets, but Mars migrating that far while keeping its surface intact doesn't seem likely at present; while we should remain open to that possibility, Occam's razor says assume it's water.
13. Re:Water, or some other fluid? by bromoseltzer · 2012-09-27 13:37 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  I've never heard of Occam's Razor. What is it? I'm imagining some kind of 7 legged, supersonic, invisible shoe.
  It's an Olde English Cellphone.
  
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14. Re:Water, or some other fluid? by pjbgravely · 2012-09-27 13:37 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Orange juice is mostly water, so water is still the correct answer.
  
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15. Re:Water, or some other fluid? by Dogtanian · 2012-09-28 00:42 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Orange juice is mostly water, so water is still the correct answer.
  Human beings are mostly water, so I guess we can explain Mount Rushmore as "water erosion"? ;-)
  
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Re:Rocks by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-27 10:52 · Score: 4, Insightful

So we spend billions to look at dirt !!
Look, touch, analyze. It sure beats sending 2-3 meatbags on Mars to do the same thing.
Look closely by kurt555gs · 2012-09-27 11:29 · Score: 5, Insightful

I see Thoat tracks.

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Re:Rocks by z0idberg · 2012-09-27 11:43 · Score: 3, Insightful

And imagine how much more they could get done while they sit around on that red rock waiting to die.
Props to submitter and editor by elistan · 2012-09-27 12:32 · Score: 5, Insightful

Nice job, submitting and subsequently accepting, an article with a link to the NASA article instead of some random blog linking to a multipage ad-heavy website that only vaguely discusses the NASA article. More of this, please.
1. Re:Props to submitter and editor by sighted · 2012-09-27 14:36 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  So glad you found it useful, and thank you for saying so. If, however - just for the sake of familiarity - people still want a link to some random guy's website, here's my latest space-related project: http://www.ridingwithrobots.org/earth Except it still doesn't have ads. Oh well, what can you do?
  
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