Movie of water flowing on Mars!

Yet more evidence of water near or at the surface of Mars.

This animation was made by combining images over a period of two years at the Horowitz Crater on Mars where the temperature can reach 80F during the martian summer:



Full resolution: www.nasa.gov...

You can see the water flowing downhill as the temperatures rise. Scientists say the salty liquid water is flowing through the soil. I think we call this mud.

Repeat imaging by HiRISE shows the features appear and incrementally grow during warm seasons and fade in cold seasons. They extend downslope from bedrock outcrops, often associated with small channels, and hundreds of them form in rare locations.

With water this close or at the surface, and with sunlight for energy, maybe it's time we sent a microscope to look for tiny beasties (microbes). The water is salty, but there are microbes that can live in salty water on earth called Halophiles.

The fact that these changes are occurring with the seasons rule out many non-water theories:

Streaky slopes closer to the equator, for instance, do not seem to display the seasonality that would be expected of melting and could simply be tracks from boulders rolling downhill

Other researchers, comparing these to similar flows on earth conclude:

whatever is moving down the Martian slopes behaves as liquid would in that environment. "If it moves like water, it may very well be water."

www.scientificamerican.com...

Does it look like water flowing to you? Is this why Mars programs are being cut back? Will a rich billionaire send his own probe?

Is this why Mars programs are being cut back?

Curiosity is on its way as we speak.


The possibility of transient liquid brine does increase the possibility of microbial life but it is not just the extremely high levels of salts (which would be required to prevent evaporation under the low atmospheric pressure) which would make it difficult.

reply to post by Phage


Microbes on Mars would need to be capable of enduring difficult conditions. Not only would they have to adapt to high salt concentrations but also cosmic radiation and UV rays.

There is a microbe on earth called Deinococcus radiodurans that biologists jokingly call Conan the Bacterium. It can survive 5 MILLION rads of radiation, extremely low temperatures, acids, dehydration and lack of nutrients. I wrote a little about it here: www.abovetopsecret.com...

Something like this could survive on Mars. What bothers me is that we are getting so close to finding out if there is life on other worlds, and funding gets cut. Maybe politicians think we can't handle the truth.

reply to post by Phage


Maybe a sodium-based life form might be discovered Maybe just saline-tolerant bugs and bacteria or maybe... we have found some amazing extremophiles. Or maybe its just a salty mud and I am getting my hopes up... either way thanks for the animation op.

Some years ago... The evidence...

Liquid (water) flow on mars Now!

Baby Steps...That's how the science world operates
Sometimes it's incredibly frustrating!

We have not heard an official word about
liquid water currently on Mars.
But this leads me to say "Thar she blows"
If the liquid is indeed water.

Super cool find!
Congrats on what will be a huge thread.

reply to post by Arken


I just checked the thread.
Very cool and kind of a downer
because that sure looked like water,
to my nonscientific eyes. I haven't heard
a word about it, in my science magazines.

You are always on the ball Arken.

Looks like changing shadows to me

reply to post by eazyriderl_l

Maybe a sodium-based life form might be discovered

That would be a hard one to imagine.
But there are salts other than sodium.

Originally posted by Nicolas Flamel
Yet more evidence of water near or at the surface of Mars.

This animation was made by combining images over a period of two years at the Horowitz Crater on Mars where the temperature can reach 80F during the martian summer:

Full resolution: www.nasa.gov...

You can see the water flowing downhill as the temperatures rise. Scientists say the salty liquid water is flowing through the soil. I think we call this mud.

Repeat imaging by HiRISE shows the features appear and incrementally grow during warm seasons and fade in cold seasons. They extend downslope from bedrock outcrops, often associated with small channels, and hundreds of them form in rare locations.

With water this close or at the surface, and with sunlight for energy, maybe it's time we sent a microscope to look for tiny beasties (microbes). The water is salty, but there are microbes that can live in salty water on earth called Halophiles.

The fact that these changes are occurring with the seasons rule out many non-water theories:

Streaky slopes closer to the equator, for instance, do not seem to display the seasonality that would be expected of melting and could simply be tracks from boulders rolling downhill

Other researchers, comparing these to similar flows on earth conclude:

whatever is moving down the Martian slopes behaves as liquid would in that environment. "If it moves like water, it may very well be water."

www.scientificamerican.com...

Does it look like water flowing to you? Is this why Mars programs are being cut back? Will a rich billionaire send his own probe?

edit on 26-3-2012 by Nicolas Flamel because: (no reason given)

You know it could be another (unknown on earth) liquid.
It could even be gin or vodka?
Why does it have to be water?

reply to post by Nicolas Flamel[/i
From August 2011....
From 2011
Nasa has been looking at this for a while.

Follow-up laboratory experiments should prove or disprove theory.
-Taken from above linked website

My question is... whats the hold up. I'm not sure what rovers, if any, are close to this crater. One would think this would be kind of a priority. To my knowledge, Curiosity is planned to land in the Gale Crater....is this close to the Horowitz Crater? If not, maybe the Gale Crater has some similar features that could be observed and sampled.

"Water salty enough to be liquid on Mars today is too salty for life," planetary scientist Christopher McKay, with NASA's Ames Research Center in California, wrote in an email to Discovery News. -Taken from above linked website

How true is that statement? Maybe its too salty for any of Earths life, but Earths life won't have to worry too much about living on mars.
TXML

edit on 26-3-2012 by txMEGAlithic because: (no reason given)

edit on 26-3-2012 by txMEGAlithic because: Where's the OFF SITE CONTENT box?