Water 'flows' on Mars By Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor Dark streaks on crater and valley walls may indicate that brackish water currently flows across the surface of Mars. The images show streaks on the surface of Mars New images and analysis suggest the slopes around the Red Planet's largest extinct volcano, Olympus Mons, contain dark stains caused by brine flowing down hill. The discovery indicates that the substantial underground ice deposits on Mars can sometimes melt and flow across the surface. It is bound to increase speculation that life may exist near to the surface of the planet. According to researcher Tahirih Motazedian, of the University of Oregon, US, it is the first time that changes on Mars have been seen due to water. She told BBC News Online that she had examined images of Mars taken at different times and had seen new streaks form within time intervals of months. She speculates that geothermal activity driven by volcanic heat may be causing the melting of subsurface ice. The water dissolves surrounding minerals to form a super-saline brine which, because it contains salts, can remain liquid at lower temperatures and pressures than pure water can. When the brine trickles on to the surface, it flows downhill staining the surface. "The streaks originate from distinct geologic horizons below the Martian surface, where the water-ice table has been intersected by crater and valley walls," she said. 'Dynamic fluid flow' Significantly, the dark streaks are never overlain or cut by other features like craters or sand dunes, just as if they were made by water marking the surface. "They passively overlay existing features except where they are forced to flow around obstacles," she said. The dark streaks always begin upslope as a point and widen downslope, just like flowing water. Stains said to be caused by the water The streaks have the same dispersive patterns that liquid water has when it flows downhill, "highly indicative of dynamic fluid flow", says Tahirih Motazedian. Images taken of the Mangala Valles region show that the dark streaks are being formed at the present time. Two images taken a few months apart show new streaks have appeared. "This demonstrates the existence of a currently active, short-term process of surface change on Mars," the researcher said. -I believe there is some form of life currently living on Mars. I'm not talking about intelligent life of course, but some form of Microbe. KC
I agree, some sort of very tough microbe, but something however simple. There are so many important ingredients in place already and with the strange life we have found here on Earth (hydro vents, Antarctic, deep in the crust) , life on Mars is probable in my mind. (Ya, i'm taking my mind off the war a little with this thread.)
Microbes can survive on Asteroids which have no protection from radiation, I don't see why they can't survive and heartily on Mars. DD
Here is one amazing strain examined by NASA... KC http://astrobiology.arc.nasa.gov/news/expandnews.cfm?id=243
So, who decided that radiation would keep another life form from living on Mars. Just a thought. I'm sure some other lifeform is going "there no way anything could live on planet earth because there is way too much water on it. A creature would have to be like 95-98% water to survive down there. That's impossible." Pretty amzing stuff.
yeah! that's what they thought about Stitch!!! they thought he couldn't survive on earth because there was so much water! and they were shocked when he was actually surfing in the pacific ocean.
Some of those microbes may be senior members of the BBS. If the NSA would loan NASA just one Keyhole spy sat. we could launch it to Mars and have this whole business settled (an engineer working on a Keyhole described it as a much more powerful Hubble with technology 20 years more advanced pointing at the earth from an L1 orbit). Making do with vintage equipment still has shown at least three seperate examples of flowing water on Mars. This evidence along with meteorite "fossils" and the original tests from the first Viking missions (2 out of 3 passed) are building a nice case for life. The missions to Europa are going to seem like pure science fiction when they happen.
that's right! thanks to the hard work of (damn, i forget his name!! the "men in black" looking guy!!!) joke....dying..........aaaah........
Um, don't want to rain on anybody's microbe parade, but the asteroid microbe evidence (link posted from 1999) was overturned pretty quickly by geologists, unfortunately. What looked like little bacteria fossils in the rock are fairly easily explained with natural geologic processes. I would believe that Mars once contained some live microbes, and we'll probably find evidence to that effect, but I'm going to remain skeptical about microbes being there right now. However, there are deinitely some very good scientists looking into this possibility. The studies of "life in extreme environments" are fascinating, and, like some of you suggest, we're probably going to figure out that life is even more sturdy than we've considered. Thanks for a different thread, KC!
They can't just fly it back? B-Bob I thought the meteorite "fossil" was still up in the air, with no real way to prove one side or the other. Its the flowing water that makes the case anyway in my opinion. If we could somehow bottle Marsian water, France would no longer hold the all powerful Evian veto right?
No, it crashed to Earth I think, and that's how they found it! (*rimshot*) thank you, thank you. Um, you're right, technically. But once you see photos of the same formations on Earth made geologically, it makes the microbe hypothesis seem remote. Possible, yes, but Occam's (sp) razor would lead one to put money on the geology here.
