NASA about to announce flowing water on Mars?

NASA about to announce flowing water on Mars?

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Discussion

alock

4,224 posts

210 months

Thursday 1st October 2015
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Guvernator said:
alock said:
Depends what you mean by life? It's worth reading up about the concept of The Great Filter in the Fermi Paradox
Oh I'm very much aware that the chances of finding intelligent life within the human timespan and distance are very very remote, however the chances of finding water or evidence of SOME sort of life, even if it's micro-organisms or some such is WAY more likely, enough to be considered a dead cert in comparison I'd say so not really sure why in those terms, this is seen as such a big deal?
The great filters are not just about intelligent life. Out of the 9 potential great filters listed on wiki, you have basically just said we can dismiss 1, 2, & 3 just on Mars alone because they need to have passed to have 'micro organisms'. To say we could consider this a 'dead cert' is just wrong.

My opinion is that number 1 is just a maybe because Mars is further form the Sun than the Earth and also smaller and hence the environment is very different. We do not have enough evidence to make any valid predictions about numbers 2 and 3.

Guvernator

13,104 posts

164 months

Thursday 1st October 2015
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alock said:
The great filters are not just about intelligent life. Out of the 9 potential great filters listed on wiki, you have basically just said we can dismiss 1, 2, & 3 just on Mars alone because they need to have passed to have 'micro organisms'. To say we could consider this a 'dead cert' is just wrong.

My opinion is that number 1 is just a maybe because Mars is further form the Sun than the Earth and also smaller and hence the environment is very different. We do not have enough evidence to make any valid predictions about numbers 2 and 3.
OK perhaps dead cert was the wrong word to use in the context of our solar system i.e. it's likely that a large number of planets in the universe are completely cold, dead and lifeless in every sense of the word so yes we are fortunate to possibly have found evidence of something, literally right on our doorstep.

For me however it's just a confirmation of something that has almost always been a certainty, if not in our solar system then elsewhere in the universe. Let's just say I always had faith in the science and given the VERY large numbers involved, the probability that it is likely but I guess seeing is believing smile

Eric Mc

121,779 posts

264 months

Thursday 1st October 2015
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And, cosmically speaking, Mars is next door. So, finding a planet like earth 100 light years away would be very exciting - but a bit academic at the moment due to our inability to get to it. Mars is eminently gettable attable.

Guvernator

13,104 posts

164 months

Thursday 1st October 2015
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So if they do find water, are we thinking viable colony on Mars in 30 years?

Eric Mc

121,779 posts

264 months

Friday 2nd October 2015
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They HAVE found water. They've known there is water on Mars for sure for over ten years.

This week's announcement was not about confirmation of water on Mars. It was about confirmation that, now and then, LIQUID water flows on the surface.

We could put a settlement on Mars right now if we had the incentive to get the job done.

Einion Yrth

19,575 posts

243 months

Friday 2nd October 2015
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Eric Mc said:
We could put a settlement on Mars right now if we had the incentive to get the job done quite outrageous sums of money made available.
Sorry Eric, couldn't resist.

jmorgan

36,010 posts

283 months

Friday 2nd October 2015
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They were on a bout a Saturn V flyby of Venus when looking to extend the missions. Instead they shrunk back to Earth, low orbit.

Political battle won, all go home until the next one. I expect the emerging nations will pip them at the post for the hell of it.

Eric Mc

121,779 posts

264 months

Friday 2nd October 2015
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Einion Yrth said:
Eric Mc said:
We could put a settlement on Mars right now if we had the incentive to get the job done quite outrageous sums of money made available.
Sorry Eric, couldn't resist.
One man's "outrageous" as another man's "reasonable".

As Neil De Grasse Tyson says, NASA consumes on half cent of every US taxpayer's tax dollar.

MartG

20,622 posts

203 months

Friday 2nd October 2015
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Source of running water has been located....


Guvernator

13,104 posts

164 months

Friday 2nd October 2015
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Looks like risk of contamination might scupper too much further analysis of the water. I didn't even realise that would be an issue but it's so obvious now I've read and thought about it.

I'd like to think I'm fairly intelligent and I know about cross-contamination through various stuff that I've read but that wouldn't have occurred to me in a million years if I were around at the beginning of the space program. Amazing that some people had the foresight to think about and create a policy for this kind of stuff 60 years ago. Imagine if they hadn't, we would "find" life on every planet we visited smile

Eric Mc

121,779 posts

264 months

Friday 2nd October 2015
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The first man made object to land on Mars was in 1971 - the Russian probe Mars 2. It failed to work even though it had landed in one piece.

Toaster

2,938 posts

192 months

Sunday 11th October 2015
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Eric Mc said:
The first man made object to land on Mars was in 1971 - the Russian probe Mars 2. It failed to work even though it had landed in one piece.
Eric you sure that Mars 2 landed and didn't crash? you may want to check the historical records. Mars 3 did make a soft landing in the same year and made a brief transmission.

Eric Mc

121,779 posts

264 months

Monday 12th October 2015
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Whats a digit between friends;)

Einion Yrth

19,575 posts

243 months

Monday 12th October 2015
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Eric Mc said:
Whats a digit between friends;)
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wink

No Bend

591 posts

121 months

Monday 12th October 2015
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Eric Mc said:
We could put a settlement on Mars right now if we had the incentive to get the job done.
Well you couldn't have it right now, you'd have to wait the flight time at least.

MartG

20,622 posts

203 months

Monday 12th October 2015
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Eric Mc said:
We could put a settlement on Mars right now if we had the incentive to get the job done.
If NASA could convince Congress that there was oil there, along with 'non-US' people, I'm sure they'd feel the need to go and 'protect' the oil wink

maffski

1,866 posts

158 months

Thursday 23rd November 2017
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In an update to 'water flowing on Mars' a new study has been published which comes to the conclusion 'sand flowing on Mars, although it could be slightly damp'

Story on The Register

Eric Mc

121,779 posts

264 months

Thursday 23rd November 2017
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That is kind of what the original theories were saying. The problem with Mars is the low air pressure. Water should not exist in liquid form on the surface. But in certain restricted circumstances, you can get liquid water in a low pressure environment - if the water is heavily laden with salts for instance. So, we could get a damp sludge type material "flowing" on the surface.

Even if these transient stripes were not caused by liquid water, we do know that there is plenty of water on Mars. It's just frozen or gaseous (depending on whether it is under the surface or exposed).

footnote

924 posts

105 months

Thursday 23rd November 2017
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I caught a few minutes of John Humphrys chatting with a scientist on R4 this morning and although I missed the beginning, it seemed to be about water on Mars and the general necessity of water for life - as we know it.

The scientist mentioned a NASA dictum - "Follow the water" meaning, if you find water you are more likely to find life.

Humphreys self-deprecatingly queried, while he accepted it may be a very stupid question, was there any possibility of life anywhere that did not depend on water.

Scientist went silent - possibly perplexed or bemused or stumped - hard to tell, and eventually replied that he believed that life was probably always going to be water-dependent, although he acknowledged that some critters lived in the most difficult of environments.

Not being a scientist myself, I thought Humphreys had asked a great question but the scientist's hesitation prompted me to raise the same question on here.

I'm guessing that the evidence for the argument that all life is water-dependent is exclusively based on our current knowledge of life on earth and that there's no proof for either side of the argument - it's just beyond current human knowledge?

Guvernator

13,104 posts

164 months

Thursday 23rd November 2017
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I'm not an expert but I think I've read previously that water is a pretty basic requirement for carbon based life of which we are a part. I think the fact that it's also the only type of life we currently know about means that if we find water, it might be a lot easier to find life, at least in a form that we could easily recognise.

That's not to say that there might not be life in other forms, for instance it's been suggested that silicon based life might also be another possibility but since there aren't any examples on Earth and we've not encountered it yet, it will be harder to find and in a universe that's as vast as the one we occupy, it probably makes a lot more sense, at least initially to try to find life that's similar to our own basic composition before we start looking for it elsewhere.