[QUOTE]
article: [url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2013/01/21/nasa-finds-remains-of-ancient-martian-lake/[/url]
[IMG]http://blogs-images.forbes.com/alexknapp/files/2013/01/Martian-Lake.jpg[/IMG]
The Martian surface is in the middle of a 600 million year long drought – and right now is almost too dry for life to exist on its surface. That said, over the past decade, there has been an enormous amount of evidence that water once flowed freely on the ancient surface of Mars. And that case has been bolstered yet again, as scientists studying images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, a satellite that takes pictures of the Martian surface from orbit using a variety of different tools.
As researchers studied images of the McLaughlin Crater, a crater 57-miles across and 1.4 miles deep that formed as the result of an impact with a large meteor, they noticed sedimentary rocks. Spectroscopic images of those rocks taken with the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) showed that they were composed of minerals that only form in the presence of water. Detailed studies of the surface indicate that these were formed by a lake caused by the flow of underground water that periodically made its way to the bottom of the crater.
“Taken together, the observations in McLaughlin Crater provide the best evidence for carbonate forming within a lake environment instead of being washed into a crater from outside,” said lead researcher Joseph Michalski in a press release. ”A number of studies using CRISM data have shown rocks exhumed from the subsurface by meteor impact were altered early in Martian history, most likely by hydrothermal fluids. These fluids trapped in the subsurface could have periodically breached the surface in deep basins such as McLaughlin Crater, possibly carrying clues to subsurface habitability.”
This find is just one more piece of the puzzle about what Mars looked like hundreds of millions of years ago, when there was water on the surface. This finding may also tech scientists more about the potential for whether life exists – or ever existed – on the Red Planet.
“This new report and others are continuing to reveal a more complex Mars than previously appreciated, with at least some areas more likely to reveal signs of ancient life than others,” said scientist Rich Zurek in the release.[/QUOTE]
I think by now we can safely saw there definitely was water on Mars. Alright. Got that. Let's find some fossils already!
Well if there ever was multi-cellular life, surely fossils will have assembled on the bottom of a lake of all places? I think a Rover should take a closer look.
Wouldn't it be pretty cool if the [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia"]Panspermia[/URL] theory was correct and that asteroid came from mars?
We are all martians.
[editline]21st January 2013[/editline]
[sp]ACK! ACK! ACK! ACK![/sp]
We knew there was water on mars well before we ever put a rover on the ground.
Dammit let's find life already.
Where did the water go
Wat-er discovery!
It floated out into space.
[QUOTE=meppers;39308950]Where did the water go[/QUOTE]Evaporated after the rest of it's atmosphere was stripped away by the Sun.
[QUOTE=meppers;39308950]Where did the water go[/QUOTE]
to earth, and along with it the bacteria that evolved into the rest of the life on our planet. It's why we breathe oxygen and not nitrogen since our atmosphere is mostly nitrogen!
Nobel prize, please
It is theorized that the core of Mars stopped rotating for some reason, causing its magnetic field to fail, which exposed it to solar wind from the sun, which in turn stripped away much of the atmosphere. Without a thick atmosphere, any water would have either frozen or evaporated due to low pressures.
i read the title as [i]NASA Finds Remains Of Ancient Martian[/i]
dammit
pffft.. we all know that the government knows that we came from there like 300 thousand years ago and had to move here after we broke the planet... almost doing it here too =P
TELL ME YOUR SECRETS MARS
I like how the title of this thread gets progressively more awesome as it goes along and then drops like a rock on the last word
NASA (oh cool the space guys what are they up to)
Finds (oh neat they don't usually do that)
Remains (woah shit like remains like a dead thing or a building or something)
Of (????)
Ancient (oh man they found ancient remains in space this is gonna be groundbreaking)
Martian (OH MAN WHAT ANCIENT REMAINS DID THEY FIND OF MARS WAS IT OF MARTIANS OR MARTIAN GERMS OR WHAT)
Lake (Oh. Didn't they already find some of those? You want to see a dried-up lakebed we can go to my neighbor's house, their duck pond has been dried up for like a year now.)
the dinosaurs messd up mars so they went to earth
[QUOTE=Killer900;39309157]Evaporated after the rest of it's atmosphere was stripped away by the Sun.[/QUOTE]
that's kind of weird because our planet is closer to the Sun than Mars, but ok.
[QUOTE=Gekkosan;39313522]that's kind of weird because our planet is closer to the Sun than Mars, but ok.[/QUOTE]
We also have a nice thick atmosphere and magnetosphere protecting us from the Sun. Mars has very little atmosphere and no magnetosphere. It's bombarded by everything the sun can throw at it. Were in a nice protective bubble that literally keeps us alive. If we lost it tomorrow our whole planet would cook to a crisp.
Ain't that a privilege.
And since there's very little atmosphere, there's hardly any ambient atmospheric pressure, the water freezes instantly due to the cold, and then sublimates.
[QUOTE=Gekkosan;39313564]Ain't that a privilege.[/QUOTE]
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus]You'd think so.[/url]
[QUOTE=Gekkosan;39313522]that's kind of weird because our planet is closer to the Sun than Mars, but ok.[/QUOTE]
And Jupiter is further from the Sun, yet has a much thicker atmosphere.
There's more variables here to consider than just proximity.
[QUOTE=danharibo;39313568][url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus]You'd think so.[/url][/QUOTE]
That's why they call it the Goldilocks Zone. Not to hot, not too cold. Just right. For Earth-based biology, that is. It's sort of a biased zone. But given what we know for a fact about life, it's the best zone to be in.
While the goldilocks zone seems the best area to support life, there's still a few other places that could hold life in our solar system alone. Think of Europa for example.
[QUOTE=Blazyd;39313792]While the goldilocks zone seems the best area to support life, there's still a few other places that could hold life in our solar system alone. Think of Europa for example.[/QUOTE]
Wouldn't surprise me if Titan had some sort of life too.
Maybe there was life on Mars, maybe even intelligent, but it died out?
I dont think it was intelligent cause you know you didnt any drawings
[QUOTE=Black;39313906]I dont think it was intelligent cause you know you didnt any drawings[/QUOTE]
If you mean they didn't find like cave drawing things like the cavemen once did here, you have to remember that Mars has been in a drought for around 600 million years. I don't think they'd last that long.
But heck if I know.
[QUOTE=TonyP;39308967]It floated out into space.[/QUOTE]
Why are people finding this guy funny, it's quite possible since Mars lost its atmosphere, that the water evaporated and managed to leave the planet, there must be quite a lot still underground though.
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