NASA says there is water on MARS

NASA just said that there is liquid water on MARS of some sort.

Watching the NASA feed right now.

They say that it is possible the liquid may not be pure water (i.e. it's mixed iwth some sort of mud or whatever) but that there is liquid H2O present in whatever it is.

They show some sort of mud slide, like a big mud slide.

Line of the press conference, "Who there's this thing coming at me!"

Crazy stuff!

Click here:

www.cnn.com...

Water on Mars!!?




[edit on 6-12-2006 by classified material]

Yeah,I was listening to coasttocoast last night and ...oh, the "enterprise mission" guy, whatever his name is...was chuckling about it because he claims that he told them about it years ago..

[edit on 6-12-2006 by SpeakerofTruth]

Wow,the "debunkers" are being pretty mum about this one. I guess they are still reeling in shock..

Well this is exciting

Since the water seems to be coming from underneath the surface, this means that there may be some sort life below the surface.

Will they be analzying the water? Or is there no longer a functioning rover on mars?

Well, my feed was sort of crappy once they started to show the various pictures, so I'm not sure.

I remember one of the guys saying that they wanted to get a sample of the water, but I don't know how they proposed it.

I think this is awesome news though. If our exploration on our own planet has shown us anything, it's that life can evolve just about anywhere and in the harshest conditions. H20 on Mars makes it all the more likely something might just be there, even in the most primitive sense.

Kudos to the guy from Coast to Coast who told them about it already. However, one, I doubt that conversation ever took place, and two, I doubt he even knows anyone at NASA.

I'll be interested to see what everyone on here has to say about it after they have some time ti pick apart NASA's presentation.

Originally posted by InSanE1
Will they be analzying the water? Or is there no longer a functioning rover on mars?

There are two, but they are no where near the area that is being shown to have had some recent signs of water.

Also the water doesn't last long on the surface, due to low atmospheric pressure. But NASA or some other space agency will more than likely design a lander/rover to dig deep into the ground to look for more in the future.

Good to know, thanks for the info

Originally posted by SpeakerofTruth
Wow,the "debunkers" are being pretty mum about this one.

I guess they are still reeling in shock..

It's a "flow" of about 100 feet, it is insignificant an only of "Scientific" interest - anyone saying this means more probability there is life is propagandizing.

Originally posted by Stratrf_Rus

It's a "flow" of about 100 feet, it is insignificant an only of "Scientific" interest - anyone saying this means more probability there is life is propagandizing.

None the less it is a major find to discover liquid water existing elsewhere in the solar system is it not? Just because it is the first discovery does not mean it is the last......

Originally posted by Stratrf_Rus
It's a "flow" of about 100 feet, it is insignificant an only of "Scientific" interest - anyone saying this means more probability there is life is propagandizing.

Which means we have to look for the source. The source is most likely under the surface. If there's some sort of inner heating source under the surface that is suitable to the water remaining in the liquid state, then there is most likely life of some sort down there. Water of "about 100 feet" doesn't just form itself and that's it, end of story. It came from somewhere, and wherever that somewhere is, I'm pretty sure there's more of it.

you know when we first started getting pictures from Spirit and Opportunity, some people claimed that rovers were leaving "muddy" tracks but it was dismissed, now I have wonder if perhaps indeed the rovers have stepped in a few puddles during their traverses across the landscape.

btw I won't be surprised when NASA declares there are also martian berries and bunnies on the surface there too

Originally posted by SpeakerofTruth
Wow,the "debunkers" are being pretty mum about this one.

I guess they are still reeling in shock..

My reply from another thread which is closed where you said something similar.

From: www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by SpeakerofTruth
Oh,I certainly realize how important it is...However,I think that it is hilarious because the "debunkers" don't know how to react...

I've seen you say this once before. What debunker's exactly? I don't think anyone denies that there has been water on Mars. There's definitely a lot of evidence for it.

That is the real reason why these threads are not getting a response...The believers are not surprised by these findings at all...However, the "debunkers" who usually post on these kind of threads aren't posting.. Why? What are they going to say? What can they say? The proof is in the pudding...

No one can say for 100% certain that this is water. There are other possibilities, but the evidence for water being on Mars is defiantly very compelling and it's probably more than likely water.

Why these threads aren't getting many replies? (besides the fact that there are so many all over the forum). I don't know, but for me personally I don't have a lot of information to go on. Further studies need to be done to learn more about it.

Originally posted by pavil
None the less it is a major find to discover liquid water existing elsewhere in the solar system is it not? Just because it is the first discovery does not mean it is the last......

Even though I am quoting myself, which is weird, I have to revise my statement. Enceladus, a moon of Saturn has a covering of ice and gravitational pressures turn some of it into water vapor that jets out into space geyser-like. I guess Mars is the third object to have water in it's liquid state in the solar system.

If liquid water exists in three objects in the solar system, it raises the possibility at least for water to exist far more often in planetary systems than previously thought.

Originally posted by The Big O
NASA just said that there is liquid water on MARS of some sort.
Crazy stuff!

Well sludge maybe... but that would need water LOL

During the years since the original June 2000 report, the Mars Global Surveyor's camera was used to test the hypothesis that the gullies may be so young that some of them could still be active today. The test was very simple: re-image gullies previously seen by the camera and see if anything has changed.

In two cases, something changed. One of those cases is presented here.

READ ALL ABOUT IT!!!



This one is awesome!!



Now you see it... now you don't! Errrrr reverse that!



READ ALL ABOUT IT PART 2!!


[edit on 20-12-2006 by zorgon]

Originally posted by jra
There are two, but they are no where near the area that is being shown to have had some recent signs of water.

Another coincidence i suppose.

Also the water doesn't last long on the surface, due to low atmospheric pressure. But NASA or some other space agency will more than likely design a lander/rover to dig deep into the ground to look for more in the future.

I'm surprised your still saying this after the last few years worth of evidence contradicting this old 'assumption' ( and that is a very generous of me btw) but since that's how your going to try do it here is why i don't think that idea will not even float on Mars.

On Mars the globally-averaged surface pressure of the planet's atmosphere is only slightly less than 6.1 millibars.

"That's the average," says Haberle, "so some places will have pressures that are higher than 6.1 millibars and others will be lower. If we look at sites on Mars where the pressure is a bit higher, that's where water can theoretically exist as a liquid."

science.msfc.nasa.gov...

Rumors about what has been actually identified are about as fluid as liquid itself, from water-ice deposits, concentrations of iron, to Martian springs, and even Old Faithful-like geysers.

www.space.com...

WASHINGTON -- Researchers using NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft announced Thursday that they found puzzling signs of water seeping into what appear to be young, freshly-cut gullies and gaps in the Martian surface.
The startling discovery of recently-formed, weeping layers of rock and sediment has planetary experts scratching their heads.

The wet spots show up in more than 120 locations on Mars and in the coldest places on the planet, said Michael Malin of Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, California, which built the spacecraft's camera.

And that presents a "perplexing problem," he said, because logic says that Mars sub-zero temperatures and thin atmosphere should have kept those wet spots from ever forming.

The wet spots, which turn up in 200 to 250 different images from the Global Surveyor spacecraft, "could be a few million years old but we cannot rule out that some of them are so recent as to have formed yesterday," Malin said.

www.space.com...

A team of researchers from the University of Arkansas has measured water evaporation rates under Mars-like conditions, and their findings favor the presence of surface water on the planet. Water on the planet's surface makes the existence of past or present life on Mars a little more likely, according to the group.

Derek Sears, director of the Arkansas-Oklahoma Center for Space and Planetary Sciences, and his colleagues graduate student Shauntae Moore and technician Mikhail Kareev reported their initial findings at the fall 2003 meeting of the Division of Planetary Sciences of the AAS.

The researchers have brought on-line a large planetary environmental chamber in which temperature, pressure, atmosphere, sunlight and soil conditions can be reproduced. Sears and his colleagues use the chamber to investigate the persistence of water under a range of physical environments and to study its evaporation.

"These findings suggest that even under worst case scenarios, where wind is maximizing evaporation, evaporation rates on Mars are quite low," Sears said. This implies that surface water could indeed exist, or have existed recently, under the given conditions on Mars.

www.spaceref.com...

And if these vexing problems weren't enough, recent images from MOC reveal a startling new puzzle. In nearly a dozen different locations on Mars - all of them far from the equator - there are signs that water has been seeping out of the walls of valleys and craters, forming small gullies. Some scientists speculate that this activity is very recent, perhaps occurring within the past 10 years; others say 10 million years is more likely.

Yet many aspects of these seepage gullies defy common sense. "They sure look like water-worn features," says Mike Carr, "but they seem to contradict what we know about the stability of water." They occur not only in the coldest regions on Mars, but on slopes facing away from the Sun, where the temperature rarely gets above minus 50 degrees Centigrade. Yet the water appears to be seeping out from only 100 meters below the surface, a depth at which scientists previously believed Mars's crust to be frozen solid. Scientists are busily working to devise an explanation for this phenomenon.

science.nasa.gov...

Busily working to obscure the truth imo.....

Evidence for Recent
Groundwater Seepage and
Surface Runoff on Mars
Michael C. Malin* and Kenneth S. Edgett
Relatively young landforms on Mars, seen in high-resolution images acquired
by the Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera since March 1999, suggest
the presence of sources of liquid water at shallow depths beneath the martian
surface. Found at middle and high martian latitudes ( particularly in the southern
hemisphere), gullies within the walls of a very small number of impact
craters, south polar pits, and two of the larger martian valleys display geomorphic
features that can be explained by processes associated with groundwater
seepage and surface runoff. The relative youth of the landforms is
indicated by the superposition of the gullies on otherwise geologically young
surfaces and by the absence of superimposed landforms or cross-cutting features,
including impact craters, small polygons, and eolian dunes. The limited
size and geographic distribution of the features argue for constrained source
reservoirs.

www.sciencemag.org...

"More than likely there IS life to be found. Both rovers landed in what looked very like damp clay (and how embarrassing that the rovers have no capacity to test water content of the soil). There is traces of methane in the atmosphere, that suggests current biological activity.

"Still, there is certainly not a lot of life. We need a lot of small robots travelling across different terrain's to find it, and only then, a larger mission to examine it in detail."

www.martiansoil.com...

Squyres described as "bizarre, really weird" the way in which the crater floor seems to have responded to the dragging of the rover's airbags, which deflated after the lander bounced down onto the surface after being released from its parachute. "I don't understand it," he said. Surface pebbles seem to have been squished into the soil around the lander, which appears like layers of cohesive material. "It looks like mud, but can't be mud. It looks like when it is scrunched, it folds up," said Squyres, who added, "This is something I have never seen before."

www.news.cornell.edu...

SPACE.com has learned that NASA hasdiscovered evidence of water on the Red Planets surface. The finding, made bythe Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, fuels hopes that there may be life onMars.

Sources close to theagencys Mars program said the discovery involves evidence of seasonal deposits that could be associated with springs on the planets surface

NASA announces discovery of evidence of water on Mars

The findings announced Thursday -- evidence of water seeping to Mars' surface in recently cut gullies -- bridge a gap in the beliefs of astrobiologists, taking them from strong suspicion to near certainty about the existence of liquid water on Mars.

"There's a subtlety between having every reason to believe [water] is there and having this higher level of certainty," said Bruce Jakosky, a professor of geological science at the University of Colorado, and the director of the university's center for astrobiology.

"We now know pretty convincingly that there is liquid water on Mars, and that it's relatively accessible near the surface," he said.

The field of space studies is known to throw curveballs. For instance, scientists last week said the latest evidence of water was found in cooler and darker areas facing away from the equator, while many had previously assumed that liquid water near the surface could only exist in hotter, sun-facing areas.

The discovery of evidence of liquid water on Mars boosts astrobiology.

There is no doubt in Mumma’s mind that something is going on at Mars. "Mars was wet…was it also alive…or is it now alive?"

But "alive" could be geologically alive and not necessarily biologically alive, Mumma said.

"Or Mars could be biologically alive," he added. "Or maybe both. So to me that’s the real issue. Now we think that Mars is not a dead planet. Even if it’s just geology that is occurring and releasing this methane…that’s pretty darn interesting. And the geologists are very excited about this prospect."

www.space.com...

"The three papers provide an overwhelming case for new thinking about recent geological activity on Mars," writes Baker in an analysis of the work.

Cataclysmic flooding

Baker said the findings support a 1991 hypothesis, then considered outrageous, that Mars has experienced episodes of cataclysmic flooding in modern times. Water is thought to have formed temporary seas, but researchers had long assumed it all evaporated into the thin Martian air.

Many scientists now agree that much of the water remained.


www.space.com...

Scientists say they have photographic evidence that suggests liquid water may have been on the planet as little as five years ago.
Experts last night said Mars now appears more active than previously thought and the latest study shows why it is vital to continue to search for life on our planetary neighbour.

Now a new set of photographs has suggested that liquid water may have flowed on the planet a mere five years ago.
Scientists in the USA decided to retake images of the gullies to search for any sign of recent activity.

Two of those originally photographed in 1999 and 2001 then photographed again in 2004 and 2005 showed changes consistent with water having flowed down the side of the crater. The discovery was made by scientists at the San Diego-based Malin Space Systems which operated a camera aboard the spacecraft.

Writing in the journal Science, the researchers led by Michael Malin said the properties and settings of the deposits in the gullies are consistent with water flow.

www.dailymail.co.uk...

The feature suggests that "vast flooding events, which are known to have occurred from beneath Mars’ surface throughout its geological history, still happen," the Muller, Murray and their colleagues write. "The presence of liquid water for thousands of millions of years, even beneath the surface, is a possible habitat in which primitive life may have developed, and might still be surviving now. Clearly this must now be considered as a prime site for future missions looking for life."

The researchers propose that the ice has been protected from sublimation by an overlying layer of volcanic ash.

"I think it's fairly plausible," Michael Carr, an expert on Martian water at the U.S. Geological Survey, told New Scientist. "We know where the water came from," said Carr, who was not involved in the work. "You can trace the valleys carved by water down to this area."

www.space.com...

It has already been established from Viking photographs that a thin frost does form overnight on certain areas of the martian surface. Unlike many scientists, the Levins believe that this frosty layer does not instantly revert back into water vapor when the Sun rises. They suggest that, in the early hours of the martian morning, the atmosphere more than one meter above the martian surface remains too cold to hold water vapor. So the moisture stays on the ground.

Data from the Mars Pathfinder support this theory, as the Pathfinder temperature readings noted that temperatures one meter above the surface were often dozens of degrees colder than the temperatures closer to the ground.

This layer of cold air, say the Levins, provides a form of insulation, trapping the water moisture below. Since the atmosphere is too cold to hold the water as vapor and the ground is warm enough to melt the ice, the water melts into a liquid. This liquid water, the Levins believe, remains on the surface until the temperature of the atmosphere rises enough to allow the water to evaporate. In this way, they argue, the martian soil becomes briefly saturated with liquid water every day.

"The meteorological data fully confirm the presence of liquid water in the topsoil each morning," says Gilbert Levin. "The black-and-white as well as the color images show slick areas that may well be moist patches."

sse.jpl.nasa.gov...

And if some have a hard time believing it all my pictures are prettier than those Zorgon posted earlier.

Stellar

I have a hard time believing this comes as such a suprise to so many.

A planet with two polar ice caps, geological formations that indciate water travel, as well as a surface with a high concentraiton of iron and RUST.

Not a newsbreak by any means for me, but thanks for the updated photos.

[edit on 22-12-2006 by GENERAL EYES]

Originally posted by pavil
None the less it is a major find to discover liquid water existing elsewhere in the solar system is it not? Just because it is the first discovery does not mean it is the last......

Europa doesn't count? A giant ball of water with a frozen surface?



PRETTIER THAN MINE???

Go jump in a lake..... errrr river



Don't think this was in your list...
River Collection

On second thought... the lake was a better idea... go join the Polar Bear club..



The Martian Lakes


Prettier than mine...what cheek!







[edit on 22-12-2006 by zorgon]

Originally posted by zorgon

Europa doesn't count? A giant ball of water with a frozen surface?

I stand corrected. At least 4 objects in the solar system probably have liquid water present. You can also include our moon if you are looking at frozen water in sizable amounts. Finding big ice deposits on Mars will help in the manned exploration of it.