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Scientists Have Spotted the Signs of Flowing Water On Mars

Posted by timothy on from the he-who-controls-it-controls-our-destiny. dept.

New submitter universe520 writes: Using neat imaging technology that allows them to determine the chemical compound of a substance by looking at the light reflected from it, scientists have spotted the traces of flowing water on Mars. By looking at the dark streaks on some photos of Mars, Lujendra Ojha from Georgia Tech has found compounds that are made in liquid water—meaning that water may be trickling down those streaks when the climate is just right. From the linked Economist piece: Details remain to be worked out, including where the water in question originates. Possibly, it derives from subsurface ice. Or it might condense out of Mars’s thin, dry atmosphere. Wherever it does come from, though, the amounts in question are modest in the extreme. But even modest amounts of water are intriguing to biologists. If Martians evolved during their planet’s earlier, wetter phase, the continued presence of water means it is just about possible that a few especially hardy types have survived until the present day—clinging on in dwindling pockets of dampness in the way that some “extremophile” bacteria on Earth are able to live in cold, salty and arid environments.

5 of 260 comments (clear)

  1. Let's face it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Life on Mars has already been discovered by somebody, but they're rolling out this news slowly so people don't flip their shit.

    1. Re:Let's face it... by Maritz · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Considering even if there is life on Mars it's going to be a long long way from Little Green Men I don't see why anyone except creationists would flip their shit. And even then, creationists and cdesignproponentists will ignore it and do the fingers in ears na-na-na thing. So nothing really would change except smart people would redefine their picture of the universe.

      Even at that, considering how much material Earth and Mars have exchanged over billions of years, it wouldn't even really be that amazing for single cell life to be on Mars, especially if it has a common origin with life on Earth. If we proved beyond doubt that it had an independent origin, THAT would be big.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    2. Re:Let's face it... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Take a look at this article from Answers in Genesis".

      Do you actually know any fundamentalists? They are the people most likely to believe in alien abductions, crop circles, astrology, etc. They don't really care that these beliefs may be incompatible with scripture (which they mostly haven't actually read). Besides, I don't see any incompatibility between the Bible and ETL. God could have created ETL the same time He created life on earth. It would be no more "proof" of evolution than all the other overwhelming evidence that is already ignored by fundamentalists. Some Mormon fundamentalists have an affirmative belief in ETL, and see no incompatibility between that belief and the Bible.

      The discovery of some bacteria on Mars is not going to cause the collapse of religion, and will make no difference at all to most people's beliefs.

    3. Re:Let's face it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      using one bad source of data to stigmatize a group is bad .. both ways

      Most Christians do not have an issue with the possibility of alien life.

      The Bible has many different interpretations for many different people. And hey, the Pope says aliens are possible. So, that's Catholicism, covered, and most Protestants do not even care about the issue. Cause this is not an issue.

  2. Re:Science and Christianity are NOT compatible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Religion demands that you take the word of some unknown person having a revelation thousands of years ago as the truth for some pretty important questions.

    False. Well, true for Fundamentalist Christianity, and for many other religions, but NOT true for all forms of Christianity.

    The "modernist" Christian churches take a completely different view of the Bible and of its place in their lives. Most of it is considered to be something of a moral fable. Mythology used to deliver a message, without needing to be taken literally. They seek from the Bible inspiration, a cultural identity, etc., but not doctrine. Of course, the fundamentalists refuse to recognize this as a legitimate form of Christianity, and the fundamentalists make all the noise and get all the attention.