Flowing Water Found on Mars

[murd0c]

I'm really surprised this hasn't been posted yet but this is massive news and one step closer to finding life outside of our planet. You know the saying where there is water there is life!!

NASA just announced that they?ve found signs of liquid water on Mars

As much as a fifth of Mars may have been once covered with water—and there may still be some liquid water on the planet, NASA announced today. That is good news if we humans ever hope to find life there, or to colonize the red planet.

In 2011, Lujendra Ojha at the Georgia Institute of Technology and his colleagues at other NASA observed what looked like clear evidence of liquid water. It has taken them three years after observing those images to announce today, in a study published in Nature Geoscience, that they have the strongest evidence yet that there may indeed be liquid water on Mars.

What Ojha and his colleagues observed in 2011 are called recurring slope lineae (RSL), and they are found at many places along Mars’ equator. Annual seasonal changes of warming and cooling on the red planet lead to the formation of these patterns, and the presence of liquid water has been one of the strongest hypotheses put forth to explain the flow pattern.

To prove that is indeed the case, scientists would need to find liquid water. That is nearly impossible given the temperature (an average of -63°C) and low pressure (about 0.6% that of Earth) on Mars. Whatever water exists, mostly on the polar caps, seems to be in the solid form.

However, if there are enough salts present on those slopes, then water could be there in the form of brine. Salt can lower the melting point of the mixture by as much as 70°C and possibly create the flowing patterns seen. So all that would be needed to confirm this hypothesis is the presence of salts that contain water molecules.

To find them, Ojha and his colleagues used data from the instruments onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. That was a tricky proposition: The resolution of the spectrometer is 18m per pixel, and most of the RSL are smaller in size.

But after much jiggery-pokery, Ojha and his colleagues have been able to believe that their data do indeed reveal the presence of hydrated salts (magnesium perchlorate, sodium perchlorate, and magnesium chloride) in four different locations in the equatorial region of Mars.

“This is really tantalizing,” Sanjeev Gupta of Imperial College London told Quartz. “Many have claimed the existence of water in RSL, but this is the first time that chemical evidence has been shown to exist.”

How the water needed to form brine finds its way to the RSL is not something that the researchers have been able to answer. One theory is that there may be underground aquifers. But that is unlikely given that RSL are seen on top of peaks where underground aquifers can’t exist. A more plausible theory is that salts suck the water out of the atmosphere in summer months (a process known as deliquescence).

In Atacama dessert, one of the driest places on Earth, it is through deliquescence that salts absorb water. What is particularly thrilling in relation to the Mars discovery is that even in such salty conditions, we have been able to find the existence of microbial communities. If what Ojha and his colleagues have found is indeed correct, then they also raise the possibility of finding microbial life on Mars.

The next step, Gupta said, would likely be to find ways to improve the resolution of instruments that can confirm the findings. No robotic missions are yet planned to the RSL, but perhaps space agencies should consider planning one.

[CP.AR]

This is epic. I was going to watch the news conference live but fell asleep on the couch.
I can't imagine what we'll find afterwards.

Just in time for "The Martian" movie too!

Here's a better source straight from NASA themselves
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/n...n-today-s-mars

[radioman]

Great now I know how Matt Damon lives.

Way to spoil the martian NASA!

[willystyle]

This has been known for a while for those in the know. NASA knows more than they are willing to admit. Dripping drops of truth to the people.

[hchang]

Nestle must be on the way to Mars

[meme405]

Originally Posted by willystyle

This has been known for a while for those in the know. NASA knows more than they are willing to admit. Dripping drops of truth to the people.

Been reading CiC's posts a bit too much?

Originally Posted by hchang

Nestle must be on the way to Mars

Give it up dude, all bottled water companies do the exact same thing. In fact ALL companies do the same thing. You think all those industrial sites pay for all that water they siphon away from rivers in order to facilitate their operations?

We just finished redirecting an entire river by 200km just so that a mine north of prince george can supplement it's shortage of underground water supply.

This is what our economy is built on, so if you are going to keep bringing this stupid shit up be prepared to live like a peasant, otherwise sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up.

Spoiler!

Or option C - pack your shit up and move to Nigeria. Cause regardless of what anyone tells you, money trumps all in this day and age, and because of that, us capitalist pigs hold the majority of the power in our western culture.

[Gucci Mane]

^ someone's got a bit of salt in their cooch...

hchang's post was sarcastic, actually most of his posts are. lol

[meme405]

Originally Posted by Pidish

^ someone's got a bit of salt in their cooch...

hchang's post was sarcastic, actually most of his posts are. lol

If it was sarcastic, I appologize, my meter is perpetually broken.

Just gets tiring seeing this comment over and over, and so many stupid people aren't kidding, they focus on this one fucking thing, which they probably only know about because of some stupid article by vanshittybuzz, and walk around like they know so much. When in reality they don't know dick about how industry works in this province or in Canada.

So although I probably shouldn't have directed that right at Hchang, I stand by what I said. If you don't like living in a resource driven economy such as ours, you really need to move away. Or else come to terms with living like a bum, because sooner or later the companies that are investing here, are just going to decide to pack up and fuck off elsewhere.


Anyway off topic from Mars, and the discovery of water. the discovery is generating less of a buzz than I thought something of this magnitude would. Makes me think that the day we do discover life elsewhere it might end up being pretty anti-climactic. I mean come on, we all know we're not the only form of life in this universe, so it's just a matter of time right?

[6o4__boi]

bruhhhhhhhhh...u went all Monday on hchang lol


just waiting for confirmation that they found oil in Mars
and the ensuing Sheikh race to be the first there

[willystyle]

Originally Posted by meme405

Anyway off topic from Mars, and the discovery of water. the discovery is generating less of a buzz than I thought something of this magnitude would. Makes me think that the day we do discover life elsewhere it might end up being pretty anti-climactic. I mean come on, we all know we're not the only form of life in this universe, so it's just a matter of time right?

Originally Posted by meme405

Been reading CiC's posts a bit too much?

If you've been keeping track of the news reports about Mars in the last couple of years. You would understand why this announcement is anti-climatic.

Several years ago, they were already reporting that there were ice buildups in some of the craters found on mars, then about a year ago, they were reporting that there was a possibility of running water underneath the surface. Then fast-forward to today, they announced FINALLY that WATER is flowing above the surface of Mars. If you know to connect the dots, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that there's water there, as they've been hinting that for years.

And don't even get me started on all the airbrushing NASA does with many of the photos they take out in space, but that's a topic for another day.

[CharlesInCharge]

Originally Posted by meme405

....

So although I probably shouldn't have directed that right at Hchang, I stand by what I said. If you don't like living in a resource driven economy such as ours, you really need to move away. Or else come to terms with living like a bum, because sooner or later the companies that are investing here, are just going to decide to pack up and fuck off elsewhere.

....

Care to fill out where all our resource driven profits are going? No, youre just a robot.
http://www.revscene.net/forums/69622...dden-debt.html

[meme405]

Originally Posted by CharlesInCharge

Care to fill out where all our resource driven profits are going? No, youre just a robot.
http://www.revscene.net/forums/69622...dden-debt.html

This is off topic. So I'll just stop and say that you are an idiot.

[FN-2199]

[pastarocket]

-wonder if NASA will discover any life forms, even at a microscopic level, near that salt water on Mars.

[hchang]

Originally Posted by 6o4__boi

bruhhhhhhhhh...u went all Monday on hchang lol


just waiting for confirmation that they found oil in Mars
and the ensuing Sheikh race to be the first there

[Ch28]

Originally Posted by hchang

Nestle must be on the way to Mars

[Drow]

Getting tired of reading meme's fuck-u posts on every thread i stumble upon

Id love for him to meet dinosaur and w.e that faggot bf's username was

[meme405]

Originally Posted by Drow

Getting tired of reading meme's fuck-u posts on every thread i stumble upon

Id love for him to meet dinosaur and w.e that faggot bf's username was

I had the displeasure of meeting her at summer meet a bunch of years back. Not an experience I want to repeat.

But I'm never one to hold back... Fuck you anyway.

Spoiler!

[Vansterdam]

??

[Mr.Money]

she looks pretty trailer trash too,i would expect it.
Thank you whoever banned her.

[Vansterdam]

Joe Rogan knows too lol

[Berzerker]

I think the bigger factor in finding water so easily is that Humans require it. Without water on Mars having Human population there is impossible. With water you can make Oxygen. We need it to drink and we can use it for breathable air. Transporting drinking water there for Human consumption would be an unfeasible process. Refining it is much easier.

Berz out.

[nsmb]

tfw people would rather talk about caitlyn jenner, than water on another planet