See..I told you freaks!! There's no freaking oceans on Mars! There never were! Oceans on Mars, indeed! http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2060042 Mars probably never had oceans By PAUL RECER Associated Press WASHINGTON - Researchers say there is virtually no evidence of limestone formation on Mars, a finding that suggests the Red Planet never had oceans or seas. That conclusion, however, does not alter the possibility of life on Mars, experts say. Philip Christensen of Arizona State University said that an instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor that searched the entire planet for evidence of carbonate found only trace amounts of the limestone-like mineral. The finding means it is unlikely that Mars ever had oceans of water as some scientists have suggested, he said. "Maybe instead of calling them oceans, we should call them glaciers," said Christensen. "A frozen ocean will not form carbonate. I believe Mars has a lot of water, but it is cold and frozen most of the time. That is consistent with what we have seen." Other Mars experts said the finding makes a significant contribution to the continuing debate among scientists about how much water there was on Mars, where did it go and how did the planet's intricate patterns of river beds, carved canyons and delta fans form without huge volumes of flowing water. "This is dramatically important," Matt Golombek, a geologist with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the lead agency in NASA's program of Mars exploration, said of the new study. He said there is clear evidence that water flowed on Mars in the past, but yet the thin atmosphere and frigid temperatures of the planet now make liquid surface water impossible. This suggests that Mars was once warmer and wetter and with a denser carbon dioxide atmosphere. The new finding by the Arizona State researchers shows that may not have been the case, said Golombek. "If you had a warmer, wetter, thicker atmosphere, you would expect to find carbonate somewhere and so far we haven't found it," he said. "This geochemical information is in direct contradiction to an early warmer, wetter Mars." In the study, Christensen and his co-authors, Joshua L. Bandfield and T. D. Glotch, used a Global Surveyor spacecraft instrument called the thermal emission spectrometer, or TES, that was designed to search for evidence of carbonate minerals on Mars. Carbonate is formed in the presence of water and carbon dioxide. On Earth, the mineral is found in the immense deposits of limestone that are present on every continent, in soils and layers of stone formed beneath some lakes, seas and oceans. Mars' atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide, so it has long been believed that if the planet at one time had large bodies of water then there would have been large deposits of carbonate. But the TES found only trace amounts of the chemical. Christensen said that even though there may not have been large bodies of liquid water on Mars, some life forms could still have evolved there. "When people say there are no oceans or lakes, does that mean there was no life? Not at all," he said. "There's the possibility that ice and snow on Mars melted from time to time, forming those gullies and then refreezing again." Areas where this happened on Mars, he said, "are excellent potential abodes for life and certainly worth looking at." Golombek agreed, noting that around the edges of large deposits of ice there are small areas of liquid water that could host life. "On Earth, there are growing communities of microbes that live at the edge of glaciers where you get flashes of water, even though the dominant feature is ice," he said. Ross Irwin, a geologist with the Smithsonian Institution, said the new finding does not eliminate the possibility that conditions on Mars once allowed for large bodies of standing water on the Red Planet. He said geological features on Mars, such as basins and river beds, were clearly carved by running water and that it is possible any carbonate formed was carried beneath the surface of the planet, beyond the detection range of the TES. "Lots of basins have been resurfaced on Mars," said Irwin. "Carbonate could be in the subsurface or buried beneath sediment. There could be extensive carbonate deposits that are difficult to locate."
ok. Just thought of a really good question. Where in the hell did water come from in the first place? I'm completely puzzled. If Mars is any suggestion, it would seem that frozen water always came before melted water. The science in this article seems to indicate that. But that's about all I can derive from these findings.
We should start the long process of terraforming mars. Launch a warhead out there...melt the caps, create an atmosphere, ect...
This is simply a Neo-Con cover-up of epic proportions. Remember MadMax Phobos is watching... Seriously this is one article - one theory of many of the history of Mars, there was and still is water on Mars. Don't be such a Hata MM.
Reminds me of an old joke: Q: Did you hear about the new restaurant on the moon? A: The food is great, but there is no atmosphere. Thank you Bazooka Joe.
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying, but several chemical processes create wator vapor as a by-product. Early in planetary formation, planets are warm enough to support water in its liquid form. Also water can exist in the interior of planets and things such as volcanic eruptions bring them up to the surface. Other scenarios can include things like water-bearing meteorites slamming into Mars and causing their water to be released into the Martian atmosphere.
If you think about this clearly. - A planet with ice, but no signs of water, is ripe for life, but never had it. If you melted that ice you would likely activate any DNA nucleotides on the planet. Water seems to control a large part of DNA base pairing and replication. So life would begin to erupt with or without an atmosphere. According to Darwin life would find a way to live. It just happens that the melting of ice would likely form an atmosphere on Mars Anyway. So life would evolve around using that atmosphere. But I honestly think that is irrevelant to the survival of DNA and to "life". All it needs is water and nucleotides. If you assume that ice comes before water. Then you have to ask yourself where did all the ice come from. Find that answer and you find the source of life in the universe. ------- I'm also having a very interesting thought. If water is the key to life, is the key to DNA replication, and the key to "thinking". It would seem entirely plausible to me that computers would function a lot better in some type of liquid environment. And that life itself may be more evolved in a liquid environment than it would be on land. (Which doesn't seems to be true when you look at man, but anyway...)
DOD, All I'm thinking is that there was no liquid "water" in the beginnig. There was only ice. It either came from asteroids or from a big bang. Then it becomes liquid water. Mars would seem to indicate that. Since they don't think there's any signs of water in its liquid form.
