NASA Scientists Find Evidence of Water In Martian Meteorite

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NASA Scientists Find Evidence of Water In Martian Meteorite

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday March 1, 2014 @03:30AM from the water-the-chances dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Scientists at NASA and JPL have found evidence of past water movement throughout a Martian meteorite, reviving debate over life on Mars. 'In this new study, Gibson and his colleagues focused on structures deep within a 30-pound (13.7-kilogram) Martian meteorite known as Yamato 000593 (Y000593). The team reports that newly discovered different structures and compositional features within the larger Yamato meteorite suggest biological processes might have been at work on Mars hundreds of millions of years ago. ... Analyses found that the rock was formed about 1.3 billion years ago from a lava flow on Mars. Around 12 million years ago, an impact occurred on Mars which ejected the meteorite from the surface of Mars. The meteorite traveled through space until it fell in Antarctica about 50,000 years ago.'"

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Then that's how it all started. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-01 03:40 · Score: 1

We are all martians
Another misleading title by suprcvic · 2014-03-01 03:42 · Score: 0

I read the title and thought they'd actually found water, only to find out it was hundreds of millions of years ago that it was there.
1. Re:Another misleading title by Thantik · 2014-03-01 05:42 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  The title isn't misleading at all, you're simply lacking reading comprehension. My 6 year old has better reading comprehension than you do. Evidence by its very nature is generally something that is produced or an after effect of some other process. A scratch on a car door is evidence that something harder than the surface scraped against it. You don't need the key that did it to say that the scratch is evidence of it....
Translation by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-01 03:48 · Score: 0

Martians came to Earth 50,000 years ago.
Obsession by trewornan · 2014-03-01 03:51 · Score: 0, Troll

Jeebus NASA give it a rest can't you - you've been and looked and there ain't no life on Mars - just let it go already.
1. Re:Obsession by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-01 03:55 · Score: 0
  
  Read the following as if you just ran for half an hour (or in the case of a Space Nutter, you just walked from the computer to the refrigerator):
  You Luddite! (pant pant gasp) Computers got better! (gasp wheeze) The species all in one basket! (cough wheeze) Must! Go! To! Mars! COLONIIIIIIZE!!!! (faints)
2. Re:Obsession by relisher · 2014-03-01 03:55 · Score: 1
  
  They seem obsessed with saving Dan Quayle's personal image...
3. Re:Obsession by ganjadude · 2014-03-01 04:03 · Score: 2
  
  give it a rest wright brothers, you have been trying forever and you just wont ever fly....
  
  --
  have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
4. Re:Obsession by hebertrich · 2014-03-01 04:08 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  Frankly ,there's nothing on Mars alive today . Even if there has been 100 millions years ago , we're still alone. It don't change a thing in our lives.
  Scientific interrest is the only interest. As a human being we got troubles here that need a lot more attention and focusing to solve.
  Check Ukraine being invaded by the Soviets. Check wars all around. Do we really want extraterrestrials to see us under that kind of light ?
  Warmongering , selfish, murderous ? I'd rather we take the cash from all those studies and solve the real problems we all face.
  First on the list is our own extinction.
5. Re:Obsession by iggymanz · 2014-03-01 04:18 · Score: 2
  
  nonsense, no amount of U.S. money will solve problem of why Russia (not soviets, no such thing any more) is going to invade Ukraine.
  the minuscule amount of money spent on space exploration hurts nothing.
6. Re:Obsession by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-01 04:20 · Score: 0
  
  They achieved their goal in a bike repair shop in a few years at the beginning of the 20th century with no computers, no electronics and no 3D printers. Why? Because it was achievable.
  Capisce?
  According to your logic, we aren't allowed to criticize anything because at some time in the past, one invention worked. Well, go look back at history and look at all the other competing aircraft designs that failed. They probably also thought that if they just kept trying eventually it would work.
  Well, it didn't, did it?
  At some point, you just have to give up.
7. Re:Obsession by ganjadude · 2014-03-01 04:36 · Score: 1
  
  Agreed, but if they gave up before they started just because it never happened before, where would we be? sure you could argue someone else would pick up where they left off
  
  --
  have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
8. Re:Obsession by Virtucon · 2014-03-01 04:40 · Score: 1
  
  too late.
  
  --
  Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
9. Re:Obsession by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-01 04:43 · Score: 0
  
  You are guaranteeing there is nothing alive on mars today? Seems unlikely, most of earths biomass in under the ground, no reason that can't be some under the mars ground as well.
10. Re:Obsession by PmanAce · 2014-03-01 04:54 · Score: 1
  
  The probes/rovers/landers have/had electron microscopes?
  
  --
  Tired of my customary (Score:1)
11. Re:Obsession by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-01 06:40 · Score: 0
  
  Yes, sometimes you should give up before you even start. Some things just inherently make no sense whatsoever. Like, suppose a 747 made entirely of lead and osmium, it would be so heavy it could barely move, never mind fly. It doesn't matter how much better some other technology gets, like let's say computers, because it's completely irrelevant to whether or not lead and osmium are massive.
  It's an appeal to emotion and has no place in engineering.
  It's science fiction at best, and a complete waste of time at worst.
12. Re:Obsession by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-01 07:01 · Score: 0
  
  Well if that's your argument, why not check Jupiter and Pluto too? Hell, check under the Sun!
13. Re:Obsession by Xicor · 2014-03-01 07:02 · Score: 1
  
  they traveled the surface of mars... but thats not to say that there isnt water somewhere underneath the surface.
14. Re:Obsession by rossdee · 2014-03-01 07:52 · Score: 1
  
  " Check wars all around. Do we really want extraterrestrials to see us under that kind of light ?"
  We would want a war;ike race like the martians to see us like that, then they might think twice about invading us.
  Then they might go to Saturns rings to get their water rather than here.
15. Re:Obsession by rossdee · 2014-03-01 07:59 · Score: 1
  
  Jupiters moon Europa is more likely than the planet itself.
  I wouldn't bother checking Pluto because even if there was life there, it would be pissed at us for demoting them to not living on a planet.
  "check under the Sun!"
  everything under the sun is in tune but the sun is eclipsed by the moon.
16. Re:Obsession by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-01 08:19 · Score: 0
  
  "Jupiters moon Europa is more likely than the planet itself."
  You are guaranteeing this?
  See how that logic is useless?
17. Re:Obsession by fightinfilipino · 2014-03-01 10:22 · Score: 1
  
  this is incredibly short-sighted. exploration of Mars and our Solar System can and often does lead to advancements with practical scientific applications. better and more efficient energy sources. better ways to grow food. even the potential for colonizing planets like Mars in the future. these benefit humanity on an enormous scale. the only falsehood here is claiming that humans can't tackle both immediate geopolitical conflicts and longer-reaching scientific advancement. we should be doing both.
18. Re:Obsession by tragedy · 2014-03-01 19:49 · Score: 1
  
  Well, go look back at history and look at all the other competing aircraft designs that failed.
  The Wright brothers design was one of the ones that failed.
Put it back! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-01 04:04 · Score: 0

Obviously some star spanning civilization is playing a stellar game of Tiddly Winks or Newton's Cradle and we moved the playing piece. First some rock hits some rocks on Mars and kicks come rock into space which hits some other rocks on Earth. Now it is the next guy's turn and he has to hit the rock again and move it closer or further from the target zone (Mercury?). Maybe it is stellar curling or shuffleboard. Either way, we probably shouldn't risk moving their pieces unless we are part of the rules of the game (a hazard or some such)...
Re:That settles it by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-01 04:19 · Score: 0

You seem a little bitter. Are you mad, brother?
So why can't they find this stuff on mars? by mark-t · 2014-03-01 04:42 · Score: 4, Interesting

It's not like we don't have what are essentially remote science laboratories that we've sent there which should theoretically be able to find this sort of stuff in the samples they collect.

--
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
1. Re:So why can't they find this stuff on mars? by ScentCone · 2014-03-02 01:37 · Score: 1
  
  It's not like we don't have what are essentially remote science laboratories that we've sent there which should theoretically be able to find this sort of stuff in the samples they collect.
  Actually it is like that. Because nothing we've sent there can look inside a good-sized rock with that degree of non-destructive precision and delicacy.
  
  --
  Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Getting pretty damn old... by evilviper · 2014-03-01 05:00 · Score: 0, Troll

Why is it that every damn mouse fart non-story about Mars gets posted to the front-page here, and always with a heavy-handed spin on how THIS ONE is finally going to be the bit of evidence that proves there was life on Mars? It's as if both NASA, SETI, and /. think that if they just try hard enough, they can *will* reality to match up with their dogma and fantasies about little green men.
All the indirect conjecture anyone can provide is WORTHLESS. Even irrefutable evidence of life on Mars would still be pretty close to worthless. It won't get remotely interesting until there are fossils and DNA to study. Without that, it's just a trivial footnote in a text book.
Quick... tell us the latest Apple rumor, and the latest bit of global warming proof/denial!

--
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
1. Re:Getting pretty damn old... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-01 07:17 · Score: 0
  
  Because there's a Space Nutter somewhere on here that approves these stories. And for the record, a Space Nutter is not someone who merely follows the latest NASA stories, it's someone who has an agenda to go on and on about space resources, mining asteroids, colonizing Mars and getting the Species (all of us) off "this rock", even though there's plenty of water here already and we're in space too.
2. Re:Getting pretty damn old... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-01 19:00 · Score: 0
  
  And despite it all, you're still going to die of old age, QA.
3. Re:Getting pretty damn old... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-02 02:57 · Score: 0
  
  Maybe in a couple of hundred years instead of a handful of decades? Even with all that time, no one's going to Mars or mining asteroids. Too bad eh?
Yes, fine, geez. There was once water on Mars! by Dr.+Spork · 2014-03-01 06:16 · Score: 4, Informative

How many times do we get to "discover" that bears actually do shit in the woods?
(This is years after we've seen clear pictures of Martian flood plains, with obvious river channels. This is years after we've detected signals for hydrogen under the Martian surface. This is years after models of solar system history basically make the conclusion inescapable that early on, Mars would have had to have liquid water. And I could go on.)
1. Re:Yes, fine, geez. There was once water on Mars! by ScentCone · 2014-03-02 01:40 · Score: 1
  
  How many times do we get to "discover" that bears actually do shit in the woods?
  The point in this case is that they're suggesting that we're seeing evidence not just of water, but of biological activity. You are able to see the difference, right? It's like discovering that bears not only shit in the woods, but that they also have toilet paper and elaborate sewage treatment facilities hidden in their caves. Or would be, if this evidence actually points to more-than-just-water conclusion.
  
  --
  Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Re:That settles it by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-01 06:31 · Score: 0

I'm not bitter, I'm merely observing and paraphrasing on an odd thought pattern I've noticed when space is the subject:
We're running out of resources, therefore we should mobilize more resources than the entirety of the human species has used since the dawn of time!
What's the diff between 'evidence of' and 'water' by Mister+Liberty · 2014-03-01 07:47 · Score: 1

Pressure to influence money sources.
Reviving debate? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-01 08:19 · Score: 0

When did the debate ever go away?
That's why we have probes and rovers driving around all over mars. And why debate in the first place? It's science exploration and discovery. The presence or absence of life on mars does not care what you think, it just wants to be discovered.
The American People Have been lied to so much by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-01 08:47 · Score: 0

about the true nature of reality and space that I honestly don't think anyone gives a fuck about this kind of news anymore
And so the Psy-op continues.
Re:That settles it by tragedy · 2014-03-01 19:47 · Score: 1

Don't worry, they're not bitter. It's just the crazy space nutter troll. I've been a bit worried about the poor space nutter troll lately, what with missing quite a few space articles, while posting in articles that have nothing to do with space. It's nice to see the manic screeds back where they belong.