Does water STILL flow on Mars?
Striking new images of the Red Planet have raised hopes life could be found on Mars after all.
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.
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Even if water is found, that doesn’t prove life existed on the planet? What a waste of money.
#1
OK Mr. Negative. Lets just not explore anything ever again. 🙁
If this is confirmed (there are still alternative explanations) it will be one of the great discoveries in Astronomy in the 21st century, just by itself. And yes, the possibility of life existing increases by orders of magnitude. Serious exploration of these gullies is now practically mandatory! I can’t wait for the next probes to go to Mars and actually videoing something like this happening!
Looks like we’re going to have to equip the next rover with pontoons.
🙂
More importantly, existing water will make future bases easier since we won’t have to haul our own there.
life is possible without water, there are strict anaerobes living right here on earth. what kind of tard doesn’t know that if there is water, there is almost certainly life. way to drop out of high school winner.
Holy Batcave Batman ! (depends on POV)
What a great idea, to drink irradiated, CO2 saturated and toxic Mars water. The perfect Gin Tonic !
I don’t understand the policy of not using Nukes as power supplies in space and on planets. Would make things safer for humans, plentiful electricity to purify water, as inverted double osmose won’t do the trick if there is water.
#7
They use RTG’s all the time for the deep space missions. However The fuel is plutonium, and if they used it in satelites it would eventually burn up in the atmosphere causing some radiation problems. Deep space they work good, because it is extra cold (they need a thermal gradient) and the plutonium is never coming back to earth.
An interesting note is the use of plutonium RTG’s on the lunar landers, one of which burned up in the atmosphere during the Apollo 13 mission raising the earths background radiation a couple of rem. The nuclear in space proponents dont like to talk about that…
Human Mars missions will almost certainly have some sort of nuclear powersource… The VASMIR (or similar) engies that are proposed will need a couple of megawatts of power. With the discovery of flowing water on the surface of mars today, I would say a Human Mars mission increased in feasibility a notch, though it is still a feat outside our current technological capability. I expect to see one tried out (solar power) in next decade or so on the space station if Human space program manages to survive post shuttle.
My bad…
Apollo 13 lander did not release radiation. It was an earlier mission.
memory is a funny thing…
Wouldn’t the Mars rovers have been more productive harvesting electricity from radiating plutonium?
Less weight than those panels, relying on the occasional twister to clean them.
Like, wouldn’t just 1 gram radiate sufficiently to recharge batteries overnight? Last over ten years?
The Lunar Base post, Smartalix, when is that going up? H3, here we come (no, not the Hummer 3)
6. Anaerobes live without oxygen, not water. Water is essential for all life as we know it. http://tinyurl.com/yyx3qp
I don’t quite understand how scientists “know” the bright track found in a Martian crater can be water. If it is a salt deposit, then there should be others to be seen, which there are not. And if it is frost or ice, my understanding is that it should have sublimated in the low-pressure Martian atmosphere.
RBG
10. The Rovers were supposedly built for a planned mission length of only 90 days.
RBG
I bet Bush’s previous reincarnation was the one responsible for the Martian Ecological disaster 🙂
Hmm…
What I never (I mean NEVER) hear people mention is this:
If life is found elsewhere in the universe, the Bible is pretty much totally debunked, or at least it’s evidence that the Bible is missing a few verses or chapters.
Not that it hasn’t already been edited in the interests of the church.
w00t!
no kidding, i was pointing out that life exists in more hostile conditions than simply without water. and oh yeah… oxygen is in water, so i guess it is a component of the “substance essential for life as we know it.” furthermore, if i’m not mistaken, it is the element that endows water with its mystical life giving ability, something about O2 being a terminal receptor in oxidative energy production or something. also, some bacteria grow in desert rock and even thrive cultured in zero humidity and zero oxygen…. i guess they don’t count as life as we know it though… probably b/c you can’t see it with your naked eyes or something
Lol, All due respect guys, I gonna ignore your analysis and go with what the NASA scientists say. Even though NASA scientists have that long history of just makin stuff up as they go along. I’m sure they have no evidence at all to back up what they say…
#10,
If I am doing the maths right, the RTG generators NASA use weigh about a 100 lbs, and gives off about 75 watts, or about 1/10th of a Horse Power. With that Power to weight ratio, it seems to me that you use them when all other forms of power fail.
#17, I just read up on Wikipedia on RTG generators. Thanks, this really enlightened me.
I thought such generators used the radiating particles (electrons, photons) to produce electricy, the way detectors or what Marie Curie did in her lab.
Instead the RTG uses heat to produce electricity. So much for portable nuclear energy. (disappointed)
I wish we ran outta oil about 450 years ago.. so i might possibly live in times of real space exploration..
In the mean time.. why all the hype about nada
pick up any rock anywhere.. it has water in it..
even the bible
Wow
i think that this stuff is AMAZING. And i cannot wait until there is absolute proof that there is life.
It will be amazing.
It is amazing.
=]