Jump to content

Water on Mars?

LordFerret

By LordFerret
in Science & Spaceflight

 Share

Recommended Posts

KerikBalm

KerikBalm

Posted
Posted
No seriously. I'm not impressed yet. At least not until they make a REAL discovery. Remember that arsenic bacteria a few years ago? It was announced as it was something special. A completely different branch on the tree of life. But all it turned out to be was an already well known bacteria that just happens to be able to substitute phosphorous for arsenic.

I'm sorry, you came so close, yet you're still repeating their BS.

"able to substitute phosphorous for arsenic."

I'm going to assume you meant "able to substitute arsenic for phosphorous."

And no... it can't even do that.

They did shoddy work, and skipped basic purification steps.

Subsequent analysis has shown the lack of any incorporation of arsenic into the DNA bone, as they had claimed.

All they found was an organism that could tolerate low P abundance, and high amounts of As. Its biomolecules had no substitutions of one for the other.

Its perfectly "normal" life.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Streetwind

Streetwind

Posted
Posted (edited)

Those that are hoping to get a confirmation of microbial life on Mars:

Keep in mind that no rover, lander or other mission currently on Mars has the capability (the necessary instruments) to make such a discovery. No such experiment has ever been sent there. Even Curiosity is (intentionally) not set up that way. Its purpose is not (and never was) to find life on Mars. Its purpose is to examine the geologic history of Mars in order to be able to deduce the climate history of Mars. It's there to determine whether Mars could theoretically have supported life, not whether or not it actually did.

Even the 2018 Mars Insight lander isn't set up for it. The earliest mission to carry the necesssary instruments might be the Mars 2020 rover. But IIRC it's not decided yet which instruments it will carry, so there's a chance it will take until the next mission after that.

Edited by Streetwind
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Hcube

Hcube

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

That would be a shame for ESA and ExoMars... The whole point of their mission would be changed... Of course it could confirm NASA's observations but if it finds methane it won't be a major discovery

Link to comment
Share on other sites
KerikBalm

KerikBalm

Posted
Posted
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.

Ummm, I think it only gets above the triple point at the bottom of the Hellas basin.

Even then, it would evaporate very fast.

... but that is for pure water...

Its always been assumed that if these gullies are do to "water", that the water is a very salty brine. Water saturated with salt has a lower melting point and a lower vapor pressure.

FWIW

MarsWater_1000.jpg

They may have already directly imaged briny water droplets that condensed on the legs of the phoenix lander.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/science/17mars.html?ref=space&_r=0

However, there is no consensus, and NASA appropriately did not make a big deal out of it.

I wish they had been more cautious and not made a big deal out of that terrible and wrong Aresenic-in-DNA study.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Majorjim!

Majorjim!

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

Here on Earth where life has actually evolved yes. :rolleyes:

I would bet a large sum that there will be no life of any kind found on Mars in my lifetime. Well, until people land on the surface.

"It's a rock. No indigenous life"

Edited by Majorjim
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Kryten

Kryten

Posted
Posted
Substitute this for that, or that for this. Whatever. I did it from memory and English is not my first language. But it doesn't really matter. What does matter is you understood my point; they screwed up big time!

NASA had zero involvement in that, other than the researcher involved being a NASA research fellow; the actual publication was in Science. Accepting big hyped-up papers without proper checks is par for the course for them and their colleagues at Nature, thanks to their laser-focus on publishing 'big' results.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
KerikBalm

KerikBalm

Posted
Posted
NASA had zero involvement in that, other than the researcher involved being a NASA research fellow; the actual publication was in Science. Accepting big hyped-up papers without proper checks is par for the course for them and their colleagues at Nature, thanks to their laser-focus on publishing 'big' results.

Didn't NASA also hold press conferences?

Science screwed up by publishing that tripe.

The researcher screwed up by publishing that tripe.

NASA screwed up by hyping that tripe instead of adopting a cautious attitude like it did with the phoenix droplets. Heck, I think even the martian meteorite with the claims of fossil martian nanobes was more conservatively presented.

http://www.themarysue.com/nasa-press-conference-arsenic/

The specific thing NASA said when generating pre-conference hype:

"an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life"

It was a flawed terrestrial biology finding, that if true would have implications for astrobiology.... any way... I digress, NASA played a more active role in the hype than you suggest.

But it doesn't really matter. What does matter is you understood my point; they screwed up big time!

Well, they screwed up even bigger than your statement implied.

Your statement implied that they just over-hyped a minor result.

In reality, they over hyped a *completely wrong* result.

Instead of having something minor, they had absolutely nothing at all.

You seemed to accept the validity of the claim that they had found life which could substitut Arsenic in place of Phosphorus.

I've seen many people on these forums repeating that claim. I just have to correct it every time it see it, until that garbage claim is widely known to be false.

Unfortunately... to many people seem to think it is true (but maybe not that interesting). I hope the people that find it interesting learn its false, and the people that don't find it interesting quickly forget about it and don't repeat that BS claim again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Findthepin1

Findthepin1

Posted
Posted
Ummm, I think it only gets above the triple point at the bottom of the Hellas basin.

They may have already directly imaged briny water droplets that condensed on the legs of the phoenix lander.

Phoenix wasn't in Hellas. Phoenix was in the arctic, in Green Valley. If the pressure wasn't high enough for water there, the ice that the droplets were supposedly from would have directly sublimed to gas. And then there wouldn't have been droplets. As long as the water temperature is within the melting and boiling temperature at that pressure, the water is stable AFAIK.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
RainDreamer

RainDreamer

Posted
Posted
"Spectral evidence for hydrated salts in recurring slope lineae on Mars"

Is that all? NASA must be really desperate to make such a hype over something we pretty much already knew.

I don't think the general public even know that there are water on Mars yet.

The stream seems to be an effort to get more funding for Mars missions too, since it seems to touch on habitation on Mars and stuff.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
RainDreamer

RainDreamer

Posted
Posted (edited)
Connection too low to read or watch the announcement ! :( Can you guys please tell me what's going on ? Was liquid water found ? Or methane ? Something ?

Perchlorate-brine (liquid water + perchlorate salt) found and confirmed. Now they are getting hopeful about Mars habitation.

Also, you can ask questions with #askNASA on Twitter right now.

Edit: They will need to design new robotic craft to explore the area where they find the "dark streaks" because the area is too steep for rovers like curiosity.

They are going to doing a lot of planetary protection planning, to ensure that they can look for Martian life, and not contaminate everything.

Edited by RainDreamer
Link to comment
Share on other sites
RainDreamer

RainDreamer

Posted
Posted (edited)
Can you grow a plant of some sort in perchlorate brine?

Unlikely. But you can purify it to get pure water.

Also, press release just came out for those who missed the stream:

http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-confirms-evidence-that-liquid-water-flows-on-today-s-mars

Edited by RainDreamer
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Nibb31

Nibb31

Posted
Posted

Perchlorate removal is a very involved process.

Maybe they will repurpose the Mars 2020 mission? But it is more likely that "brown patch" exploration will be the focus of the mission after that one, which would postpone the sample return mission. In any case, there is going to be some reshuffling of exploration cards in the near future.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Kryten

Kryten

Posted
Posted
Maybe they will repurpose the Mars 2020 mission? But it is more likely that "brown patch" exploration will be the focus of the mission after that one, which would postpone the sample return mission. In any case, there is going to be some reshuffling of exploration cards in the near future.

All the lineae are on rather steep slopes made of what seems to be loose soil, current rover designs would have great trouble. It's doubtful planetary protection rules would allow a direct mission to such a site anyway, at least with current procedures.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
This thread is quite old. Please consider starting a new thread rather than reviving this one.

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...