Mars once covered in water, space agency says

Mars once covered in water, space agency says

news.blogs.cnn.com

Conditions favorable to life may once have existed all over Mars, the European Space Agency said Friday.

Two spacecraft have found evidence that liquid water was widespread over the red planet.

The ESA's Mars Express and NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have discovered hydrated silicate minerals in the northern lowlands of Mars, a clear indication that water once flowed there, the ESA said.

(visit the link for the full news article)

So If water once flowed on mars can we assume life once did as well?

And if life did in what respect? Was it primitive or will we one day discover that there was once an advanced civilization on Mars?

The Article goes on to say

"We can now say that the planet was altered on a global scale by liquid water more than 4 billion years ago," said the report's lead author, John Carter of the University of Paris. Scientists said it's difficult to draw conclusions about the type of environment that existed on Mars when it had water, but they do have some clues.

Apologies if this was already posted, I did a search and couldn't find it.

news.blogs.cnn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)



[edit on 25-6-2010 by monkeykillingmonkey]

[edit on 25-6-2010 by monkeykillingmonkey]

I read this article on CNN as well. Pretty cool read. I wonder how long it will take to find flosses of former life on Mars? Can you imagine fish on Mars?

reply to post by monkeykillingmonkey

It took 4.5 billion years for an "advanced" civilization to develop on Earth. There has been multicelluar life on Earth for 1 billion years. 475 million years since land plants first appeared.

Mars formed at the same time Earth did. It may have had a bit of a head start because it could have cooled faster but the seas of Mars disappeared 4 billion years ago. Not much time for evolution to get very far.

I saw this story a few days ago. I thought this was already a known fact (theory anyway), given the erosion features that are evident on the surface.

I also saw this article, that claims that Venus was once covered with water

www.sciencedaily.com...

Billions of years ago, Venus probably had much more water. Venus Express has certainly confirmed that the planet has lost a large quantity of water into space.

It happens because ultraviolet radiation from the Sun streams into Venus' atmosphere and breaks up the water molecules into atoms: two hydrogens and one oxygen. These then escape to space.

Venus Express has measured the rate of this escape and confirmed that roughly twice as much hydrogen is escaping as oxygen. It is therefore believed that water is the source of these escaping ions. It has also shown that a heavy form of hydrogen, called deuterium, is progressively enriched in the upper echelons of Venus's atmosphere, because the heavier hydrogen will find it less easy to escape the planet's grip.

"Everything points to there being large amounts of water on Venus in the past," says Colin Wilson, Oxford University, UK.

[edit on 25-6-2010 by Aggie Man]

LOL aliens killed venus and mars to make room for us.

One day maybe some intelligence will look at Earth and say the same thing. The way we are destroying the Earth, it may be like that one day.

Originally posted by jessieg
One day maybe some intelligence will look at Earth and say the same thing. The way we are destroying the Earth, it may be like that one day.

It'll be like venus if anything, not mars really.

Doubt there was evolved life on mars, at best single cell organisms, but still that would be a stretch, cool nonetheless and just mind boggling!!

reply to post by Phage


All of that which you say, is of course dependent on our recorded history being accurate.

Many people believe otherwise.

Out of place artifacts for instance.
Then of course, there is the fact that we are having to revise our historical information further and further back, as we discover more artifacts and rediscover lost settlements, and realize the inhabitants were far more advanced that our sciences ever thought.

The advancement and decline of life on our planet may well have been a reoccurring phenomena through millions of years, some would even say billions of years, citing discovered man-made artifacts, embedded in billion year old strata as proof.

I do think it is not beyond the realms of probability, given the strange archaeological finds and baffling ancient cities and ruins all over earth, who's peoples seem to have been very acquainted and technologically and culturally similar to each other 10 - 20,000 years ago, indicating a globally sophisticated population once thrived here, then declined sharply.

My feeling is this ascent and decline of humanity has probably been happening periodically to one degree or another, throughout history, although i doubt the public would ever be notified of this, more likely, our immature archeological and anthropological sciences would be managed and 'massaged' according to the official line.

reply to post by Republican08


Why do you think it's a stretch? These kind of opinions boggle my mind. We as a species have never really observed anything like life evolving into more complex organisms. We don't know the process. We don't know how long it takes. We don't know if these rates of evolution can accelerate dramatically in different environments. We simply just don't know much.

Anything is possible.

Everything is just a theory. Facts are hard to come by. We still like to debate evolution so nobody can agree on anything, let alone how quickly life forms on an alien planet.


I personally think life is a normal part of the universe.

reply to post by monkeykillingmonkey


Yea. NASA told us this in 2003. This is not news.

And yes, it had life. Because the dirt has organic materials.

BTW, there's also probably life on Venus, Titan, and Europa.

[edit on 25-6-2010 by Gorman91]

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by monkeykillingmonkey

 

It took 4.5 billion years for an "advanced" civilization to develop on Earth. There has been multicelluar life on Earth for 1 billion years. 475 million years since land plants first appeared.

Mars formed at the same time Earth did. It may have had a bit of a head start because it could have cooled faster but the seas of Mars disappeared 4 billion years ago. Not much time for evolution to get very far.

Do you think that evolution got anywhere at all? I'm not sure what i think about life on mars.

reply to post by Gorman91


There is no life on Venus. The surface temperature is 500* Celsius and it rains sulfuric acid. Titan & Europa, life is very likely due to their geology and relatively mild biospheres in comparison.

Venus is hell. Literally.

It is of course possible that Mars once had life. Infact we see evidence that Mars STILL has life. What do you think is causing the methane? Infact Mars still has water that occasionally seeps out of the rocks and runs down the surfaces. NASA's Pheonix lander even observed snow fall.

C'mon Phage, quit beliving everything you read. No one knows if Mars was created at the same time as Earth was. No one really even has much of a clue as to when life started here on Earth, or how long it took for this or that to "evolve". All the stuff you posted is little more than a guess. Where is the science in presenting such fantasys as facts?


Who knows, maybe some of those pictures, taken by spirit and opportunity, of sea shells and sand dollars are just that. Maybe we could find fossils of even larger things.

reply to post by fieryjaguarpaw

A guess? Maybe. But an educated guess. No older meteorites have been found. No indication that the solar system on the whole is much older than the Earth. It's a good "guess" that the entire solar system formed at the same time.

It could be simple life forming the seasonal methane plumes or it could be natural processes. While it could be water sporadically appearing on the surface, it could be something else causing the appearance of water. But in spite of the claim that, "if there is water, there is life", we don't know that. A greater chance for life yes, a certainty, no. Yes Phoenix observed snow high in the atmosphere of Mars (and we know there is frozen water on the surface) but that snow did not reach the ground. It sublimed away to vapor in the thin atmosphere as it fell.

Where is the science in thinking that because something looks like something it must be what it looks like?

BTW, I don't dispute that there may have been life on Mars. I doubt (but don't dispute and I actually hope) that evidence of current life may be found on Mars but it hasn't. BTW, if you'll notice, my reply was in regard to "advanced civilizations", a far cry from simple life which may be creating methane. A far cry from something that looks like sea shells and sand dollars to some (but not me).

[edit on 6/26/2010 by Phage]

I dont believe enough research has been done to prove how old Mars really is.
Anymore than they can tell you about the "cores" of planets when they have never been to the core.
In Mammoth caves..miles below the surface, there is a constant temperature of 56F. If the earth got hotter the further down you go, it would be hotter down there than the surface is.
They cant base this on Volcanos, cause it is too hot to ever figure out how far down they go. That crap my not even be coming from the core, but rather, pockets of materials that cause the effect.
Underground, there are hollow areas ( deep caves ), water, and gases locked in just waiting to burst free.
The US government ( among others) have whole cities built underground, miles and miles deep, stocked with supplies ( paid for with our tax dollars, btw), so THEY can hide out when the SHTF. So, why isnt it sweltering hot down there?
Most of science is theory and hypotheses. Throw in 30% provable fact, and people think they know some shizit...

I believe, that not only was there life on Mars, but there still is.
I just think they are underground now. I believe there is liquid water down there, and, an advanced way of making food, etc.
Plus, there is no way in hell some of those formations occurred naturally.
Those areas built up with perfect steps, encircled with perfect "dunes", jetting out like the sun or spider legs is just too much. Then, there are the faces, mosaics, etc.

reply to post by Phage


How do you deterimine the age of a rock? How do you know how old a meteorite is? How do you know how old the solar system is? I think the answer is that you don't. No one knows.


I think one of the biggest problems with "science" is that it's affraid to imagine something interesting. Scientists have no problem imagining mundane things like Mars not being wet long enough to support life, even though the data needed to make such a claim is nonexistant, but scientist just can't allow anyone to even imagine that life could possibly, maybe, exist outside of Earth. No. For some reason these "facts" that are little more than possibilities are flung around as if they are truth.

I think more people would be interested in things like this and other scientific ebdeavors if the scientists gave equal times to both possibilities.

I mean why not just say "Yes! it's possible! Who knows? Now let's find out!"

reply to post by D.E.M.


So? You think of Carbon based life, Life comes in many ways, Titan probably has methane based, and Europa carbon based. Venus? Once you have rain, you have a cycle. Any cycle increases the chances of life tenfold, because it allows adaptability. Heat makes bubbles. acid + metals creates cycles of dissolving and evaporating chemicals in rain.


There is typology, there is rain, there is wind. It has a lot of cycles. It has plenty of heat. Life would not be common, but it could easily exist.

Would be tough to advance to multicellular organisms in such a short time frame I would have thought. Symbioses were key on Earth, and the chances of that happening are very very low.

Basically agree with phage except...

I have read a few papers that indicate that microbial life may be present. I will try to dig up the references if anyone actually cares.

PS. The more I hear people trying to discount science, the more I think that people are not willing to educate themselves. The peer review process is ruthless in most cases. Unfortunately, its hard for those on the outside to understand the reality. Science journalism (science -> english) doesn't always help either...

@ fieryjaguarpaw - I have rarely met a scientist that doesn't think that life exists outside our tiny little sphere. I know plenty. Those that don't tend to be the encyclopedic type - that are great at recall, but lack in innovation. The 'oh I should have thought of that' types. Some people will know what I mean .



[edit on 26-6-2010 by seenitall]

reply to post by D.E.M.


I would agree that terran lifeforms could not live on Venus, but I do not agree with your assumption that life is impossible there. There are more extremophile lifeforms being discovered in caves and salt flats on this planet all the time, and since that means we havent discovered all the possibilities on our own planet, I do not see how anyone , let alone some one who is not involved with the exploration program, can assume ANYTHING about Venus, or for that matter ANY other planets ability to sustain some form of life or another.
We do not even know what life is capable of yet, for all we know there may be clouds of sentient gas living in the atmosphere of Saturn, similar in Jupiter. There could be rocks which are infact lifeforms, carrying data and bloodlike fluids through thier strata. Hell , for all we know there may be more to life than biology, what about pure energy beings, sentient gravity anomolies perhaps? Until we have investigated every square foot of the universe , how can we possibly rule anything out, without reinforcing ignorance and arrogance? I say all the bets are off regarding the presence of life in our solar system , and the forms it may take. Roll on tomorrow!

[edit on 26-6-2010 by TrueBrit]