Water Flows on Mars: What We Make of This Article

[Azael]

What do you guys make out of this article?
http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/10/12/5/1

I want to break out the champagne but I guess its a bit to early considering the work hasnt been published yet.

 

[cesiumfrog]

The ESA seem certain they've found "wet" ice (as well as dry ice) on Mars (from their Science director, at the AIP last week). From a collonisation perspective, that's sufficient. If the champagne is meant to suggest martian life, such brief and minor flows of liquid water right now seem meaningless.

 

[Azael]

The ESA seem certain they've found "wet" ice (as well as dry ice) on Mars (from their Science director, at the AIP last week). From a collonisation perspective, that's sufficient. If the champagne is meant to suggest martian life, such brief and minor flows of liquid water right now seem meaningless.

The champagne is more as a celebration for something that will probably increase interest in Mars exploration :) And every slim little thing that increase chanse for life makes me jump out of joy

 

[carbz]

It might be hard to say on whether or not water can flow on Mars. The atmosphere on Mars is thin (as that article states), thus probably the reason for why we currently don't see running water on its surface. But, I feel that once more studies are made on Mars' surface, scientists would begin to find that Mars could become habitable.

 

[LURCH]

This story has been confusing me. I don't se anyone talking about evidence for why this new feature on the Martian landscape should be attributed to water, rather than a landslide.

Has anyone heard any such evidence?

 

[Bart]

LURCH, I've though the same. Sorry to say this but those lines are no hard evidence of water flowing on Mars. Of course the possibility increases with them, but we can't say for sure: There is liquid water on Mars.

As for colonisation: Why can't we use freezed water? (we know that there is such water on Mars, I think)

And finally, do you think we should send people on Mars to search for water?

 

[Nexus555]

I'm not trying to advertise another website, but there was a GREAT discussion about water on Mars at space.com forum before this photo. If you look at the large collection of pictures collected by the rovers, you'd notice that the rocks have many different kinds of imperfections and colors. Most of them are grooves, which possibly indicates water running over these rocks. I seriously doubt that sand, even blown at high speeds, could cut out water-like grooves.

Now with that photo in particular, I personally think that water may be collected in underground deposits. Much like our springs and geisers here on earth. There is a lot of water underground here, and if they have ice caps, weathered rocks, canyons, and the terrain is changing within a few years, I'd say that suggests that there may be some liquid water running occassionally.

Well I'm really not sure, but let's hope there is water still running under the surface! We know VERY little about Mars still, so we should not jump to any assumption - water or not. The only way to find out is explore!

 

[Bart]

Yeah, I took a deeper look at some photos.

First picture.
In this picture we can see some kind of a rigde with two grooves. Now let's think about what caused them. Of course we can say it was sand, rocks, but how close are we? Imo, it must have been something liquid. Why? If you take a closer look at the stream channel in the centre of the photo, you will notice some similarities with river beds on Earth. I won't tell you everything, but think about this stream as it have turned into another direction.
And doesn't it look like a spring?

Second picture.
That's one of my favourite. We can't say for sure that this is the proof of water erosion on Mars, but what is it then? It can't be sand, because where does this sand come from on the top of a mountain? Is somebody familiar with sand storms on Mars? Could this be the explanation?

 

[Integral]

I have separated the disscussion concerning man's exploration of Mars, and space in general, to the thread entitled "Man in Space".

That disscussion was off the topic for this thread.

I apologize for starting the digression.

Integral

 

[LURCH]

Bart, I think that the evidence that water once flowed on Mars is pretty compelling. the first two photos you attached are evidence only for that (unless there is more data to go with them), the only relevant photo is the third, which shows a geological feature that is present today, and was not present in 2001. That feature looks an awefull lot like a landslide of very fine dust.

I have been looking around some, and I havn't seen any support for the claim that this is evidence of water. I haven't look very deeply yet (final exams this week), so I'll keep looking.

 

[LURCH]

O.K., did find one bit of supporting evidence, and it's rather compelling. As we've probably all seen in photos, whenever the surface-covering of light dust on Mars gets disturbed by anything from http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars/images/pia09020.html" , the newly-exposed material has always shown up darker in color than the material that was removed. The newly-disturbed region currently under scrutinization is bright, much brighter than the sarounding surface. Looks like ice.

That is a a rather good indicator, IMHO.

 

[Chronos]

I'm not aware of a smoking gun, but we are all but certain water once existed on mars, and have found prior evidence some of it remains:

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/space/06/22/mars.water.03/index.html
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/opportunity_evidence_040229.html

There is also good evidence of it elsewhere in the solar system:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/media/cassini-20060309.html

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/space/12/17/space.ganymede.reut/index.html

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/europa_ocean_000824.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11736311/

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/saturn_moons.html