Water on Mars?

[vger]

"where's all the water".

I thought we had that one figured out. Lack of a magnetosphere, Mars got sunburned, water sublimated, atmosphere burned off into space?

[Technical Ben]

Here we go again...

[LordFerret]

Man.. I thought that they had found life.

Water is cool, though, too.

Where there is water, there is life. I'd put good money on it. It's only a matter of time.

[Camacha]

Where there is water, there is life. I'd put good money on it. It's only a matter of time.

I would not go that far, but it certainly makes Mars a very good place to put our Looking for life? Look for water theory to the test. If there is a reasonable amount of liquid water on the surface but no trace of current or past life, it certainly changes our view of life. Though finding living or dead life (yes ) would change our views too.

[LordFerret]

I would not go that far, but it certainly makes Mars a very good place to put our Looking for life? Look for water theory to the test. If there is a reasonable amount of liquid water on the surface but no trace of current or past life, it certainly changes our view of life. Though finding living or dead life (yes ) would change our views too.

I recall a certain Martian meteorite (announced during the President Bill Clinton administration) which may (or may not) have held petrified bacteria, that did indeed change views.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_meteorite

[_Augustus_]

Where there is water, there is life. I'd put good money on it. It's only a matter of time.

Agreed.

Wait a second.

Ganymede was confirmed to have a water ocean in March.

Enceladus was confirmed to have a water ocean this month.

Mars has just been confirmed to have liquid water sometimes.

That means the total number of bodies in the Solar System with liquid water has quadrupled in just a year...

Edited September 27, 2015 by _Augustus_

[LordFerret]

Agreed.

Wait a second.

Enceladus was confirmed to have a water ocean this month.

Mars has just been confirmed to have liquid water sometimes.

That means the total number of bodies in the Solar System with liquid water has tripled in just a month.... Weird.

Don't forget Europa!

[_Augustus_]

Don't forget Europa!

You mean Ganymede, there is still no solid proof that Europa has an ocean.

[Torgo]

They will never do that fyi

They put a treadmill called C.O.L.B.E.R.T. on the ISS. Throwing a Kerbal somewhere is easier.

[Tex_NL]

...

Given the popularity of KSP, I wonder how hard it would be to convince NASA to put a 3D-printed Kerbal on the next Mars rover...

That will be incredibly difficult. It would A LOT easier to get one on the ISS. We already know several people at JPL know and play KSP as well as several NASA astronauts. Get one of those astronauts on your side and he/she might take a Kerbal up there.

[Camacha]

I recall a certain Martian meteorite (announced during the President Bill Clinton administration) which may (or may not) have held petrified bacteria, that did indeed change views.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_meteorite

Those findings were not conclusive enough to say anything. Some people were swayed, but it seems they were more swayed because of personal beliefs than actual evidence.

[Kryten]

Cross-posting from the other thread;

The water speculation isn't just from the vague statements about a solved mystery. If we take a look at the presenter list;

News conference participants will be:

-- Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA Headquarters

-- Michael Meyer, lead scientist for the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters

-- Lujendra Ojha of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta

-- Mary Beth Wilhelm of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California and the Georgia Institute of Technology

-- Alfred McEwen, principal investigator for the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) at the University of Arizona in Tucson

Most of these are planetary science heavyweights you'd expect at a conference of this sort regardless of exact content, but Wilhelm and Ohja are just PhD candidates. Wilhelm's most recent work has been on Martian crater gullies, and Ohja's on a specific subset of those known recurring slope lineae, or RSLs. RSLs are an active feature, observed to grow and shrink annually, and our best guesses as to how and why have included transient water flow for a while.

note also that the presence of McEwen means this is something spotted by the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, not something from any of the rovers. That rules out microbial life straight-off, unless they're really big microbes.

[Mitchz95]

NASA did put some lego figures on their Juno probe, so a Kerbal on Mars doesn't sound unreasonable.

[_Augustus_]

@TheCanadianVendingMachine

Great find, thanks for linking it here.

Given the popularity of KSP, I wonder how hard it would be to convince NASA to put a 3D-printed Kerbal on the next Mars rover...

NASA did put some lego figures on their Juno probe, so a Kerbal on Mars doesn't sound unreasonable.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Juno_lego.jpg

Hate to hog the thread but I have made a new thread for this.

[Darnok]

Sagan in his Cosmos series was talking about friend who came up with idea how to test "if there is life on Mars?", but his project did get funds... or it was bit too heavy to fit the craft... I don't remember what episode it was and what mission was he talking about. Mission was successful just without equipment to study samples and detect life.

NASA probably is going to announce they know... why Moon is red only sometimes and Mars all the time!!!

I wonder what other agencies discovered, last time when NASA was doing TV show about Kepler... one observatory discovered second (or rather 3rd) star at size of Sun with planet at size of Jupiter on nearly exact orbit as our Jupiter is. That was interesting discovery anyone heard about it in TV?

[_Augustus_]

Sagan in his Cosmos series was talking about friend who came up with idea how to test "if there is life on Mars?", but his project did get funds... or it was bit too heavy to fit the craft... I don't remember what episode it was and what mission was he talking about. Mission was successful just without equipment to study samples and detect life.

NASA probably is going to announce they know... why Moon is red only sometimes and Mars all the time!!!

I wonder what other agencies discovered, last time when NASA was doing TV show about Kepler... one observatory discovered second (or rather 3rd) star at size of Sun with planet at size of Jupiter on nearly exact orbit as our Jupiter is. That was interesting discovery anyone heard about it in TV?

It's the Wolf Trap. And it didn't get funding. The guy got really upset, tried to make himself happier and ended up getting killed while mountain climbing.

Also I heard about the Jupiter twin, but it was overshadowed by Kepler-452b just a week or two later.

[vger]

It's the Wolf Trap. And it didn't get funding.

Not hard to see why. If Mars has life, why would we need to introduce a nutrient-rich mixture to a soil sample in order to find out if there's any kind of synthesis happening? If there's something alive there, it wouldn't need any help.

[vger]

note also that the presence of McEwen means this is something spotted by the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, not something from any of the rovers

The surface features that everyone seems to agree this is going to be about.

[Mitchz95]

The surface features that everyone seems to agree this is going to be about.

http://static.uahirise.org/images/2011/details/PSP_010446_1255.jpg

Looks like water to me!

(Would water on Mars be blue or red?)

Edited September 28, 2015 by Mitchz95

[Hcube]

Looks like water to me!

(Would water on Mars be blue or red?)

I thought that pressure and temperature made liquid water straight out impossible on Mars...?

[J.Random]

I thought that pressure and temperature made liquid water straight out impossible on Mars...?

Same. My guess would be that they've confirmed a non-organic methane origin.

[Findthepin1]

I thought that pressure and temperature made liquid water straight out impossible on Mars...?

The pressure is high enough over about half the planet. The temperature goes high enough over most of the planet. The main setback is that the temperature goes higher than the boiling point of water (never more than 10.04 Celsius at the absolute lowest altitudes on a good day) quite often.

[kerbiloid]

Who cares that water?

They have revealed that Mars is habitated by lovely maidens in chain-armor camisoles appealing to brave Earthlings to help.

That was the real aim of all Martian programs, the water was only a cover-up.

[vger]

Who cares that water? They have revealed that Mars is habitated by lovely maidens in chain-armor camisoles appealing to brave Earthlings to help. That was the real aim of all Martian programs, the water was only a cover-up.

Bad, Kerbiloid, BAD. You go to Charon prison now.

[Nuke]

they found a skull...