Nasa scientists find evidence of flowing water on Mars

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

Researchers say discovery of stains from summertime flows down cliffs and crater walls increases chance of finding life on red planet

Liquid water runs down canyons and crater walls over the summer months on Mars, according to researchers who say the discovery raises the chances of being home to some form of life.

The trickles leave long, dark stains on the Martian terrain that can reach hundreds of metres downhill in the warmer months, before they dry up in the autumn as surface temperatures drop.

Images taken from the Mars orbit show cliffs, and the steep walls of valleys and craters, streaked with summertime flows that in the most active spots combine to form intricate fan-like patterns.

Scientists are unsure where the water comes from, but it may rise up from underground ice or salty aquifers, or condense out of the thin Martian atmosphere.

“There is liquid water today on the surface of Mars,” Michael Meyer, the lead scientist on Nasa’s Mars exploration programme, told the Guardian. “Because of this, we suspect that it is at least possible to have a habitable environment today.”


A visual guide to water on Mars
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The water flows could point Nasa and other space agencies towards the most promising sites to find life on Mars, and to landing spots for future human missions where water can be collected from a natural supply.

Some of the earliest missions to Mars revealed a planet with a watery past. Pictures beamed back to Earth in the 1970s showed a surface crossed by dried-up rivers and plains once submerged beneath vast ancient lakes. Earlier this year, Nasa unveiled evidence of an ocean that might have covered half of the planet’s northern hemisphere in the distant past.

But occasionally, Mars probes have found hints that the planet might still be wet. Nearly a decade ago, Nasa’s Mars Global Surveyor took pictures of what appeared to be water bursting through a gully wall and flowing around boulders and other rocky debris. In 2011, the high-resolution camera on Nasa’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured what looked like little streams flowing down crater walls from late spring to early autumn. Not wanting to assume too much, mission scientists named the flows “recurring slope lineae” or RSL.

Researchers have now turned to another instrument on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to analyse the chemistry of the mysterious RSL flows. Lujendra Ojha, of Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, and his colleagues used a spectrometer on the MRO to look at infrared light reflected off steep rocky walls when the dark streaks had just begun to appear, and when they had grown to full length at the end of the Martian summer.


Satellite images have identified narrow streaks that appear on slopes during warm seasons, lengthen, and then fade when conditions become cooler. Photograph: Nasa/JPL/University of Arizona/PA

[crazybalhead]

[RBphoto]

Imagine if there are little aliens only about an inch tall and they see that rover heading their way.... with instruments extended and then an arm come crashing down to take a soil sample right in the middle of their village.. attack on titan want nothing with that.

[daas]

baby steps

[Daran]

Amazing news....probability of life has increased tremendously now.

[RBphoto]

Now remember, not all life may be carbon based. Water might not be the catalyst for life on that planet. Let's hope we don't contaminate their water with germs on the rover.

[sMASH]

No magnetic feild, no care.

[The Paleontologist]

Where bluefete and habit7

[antlind]

Does not change the price or bodi. Or bhagi.

[RBphoto]

What if they find traces of god instead of traces of life? What then?

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

Does not change the price or bodi. Or bhagi.

not now, but eventually it could adversely affect the price of all food.

[Miktay]

Another NASA nancy story...

[Cantmis]

What if they find traces of god instead of traces of life? What then?

Yuh go ha to go hajj nx year dan...

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

Another NASA nancy story...

ok, why do you say that?

[cinco]

People really so daft to think we are alone in the universe?

[Habit7]

Where bluefete and habit7

This is not the first evidence that points to liquid water in the universe or in our solar system. Water is just a compound that is liquid within a certain temperature and pressure range. If you know the politics operating behind NASA, any big announcement they can make is an attempt to justify their budget.

[stev]

Where bluefete and habit7

This is not the first evidence that points to liquid water in the universe or in our solar system. Water is just a compound that is liquid within a certain temperature and pressure range. If you know the politics operating behind NASA, any big announcement they can make is an attempt to justify their budget.

what budget?

here's what the US budget basically looks like:

I can't even start to explain how technology developed at NASA has affected the world positively.

...or wait nevermind. I now realize ur one of those '4000 old universe' guys.

[Habit7]

The Real Martian: Can We Afford a Trip to the Red Planet?
By Jonathan Zhou, Epoch Times | September 22, 2015Last Updated: September 23, 2015 7:19 pm



The date of the events in “The Martian,” the fall blockbuster starring Matt Damon as an astronaut stranded on Mars, isn’t explicitly revealed in the film itself, but the author of the novel the movie is based on said that the initial launch of the mission to Mars takes place on July 7, 2035, for reasons involving the orbit pathways of the two planets.

The 2030s is a common estimate for when mankind will take its first steps on the red planet. Top NASA officials have set 2039 as the provisional date for the first Mars landing, and Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, said that his company could offer $500,000 tickets to Mars as early as 2025.

But the road to landing a shuttle on Mars is far from straightforward, and a cursory glance at the details of such an undertaking can be daunting.

The perennial obstacle is funding: Congress repeatedly cut NASA’s budget during and after the Great Recession, and the space agency will receive only $18.5 billion in funding for 2016—just $100 million more than what it was allotted in 2011.

NASA chief Charles Bolden has frequently complained about the paucity of financial support the agency has received, and wrote an open letter to Congress in August expressing frustration at spending $490 million on Russian rockets to send American astronauts into space, all because NASA couldn’t afford to build its own infrastructure.

“It’s as if we keep ordering expensive takeout because we haven’t yet set up our own kitchen—only, in this case, the takeout meals are costing us hundreds of millions of dollars,” Bolden wrote in Wired.....





O. Glenn Smith, former manager of shuttle systems engineering at the Johnson Space Center, put the cost of a single mission to Mars at $230 billion earlier this year in an editorial for Space News, and at $1.5 trillion for 9 missions, the same number of crews NASA attempted to send to the moon (six made it).

It’s unlikely NASA will ever get that money. In a 2012 General Social Survey, only 20 percent of Americans supported more space funding; 40 percent thought that funding was adequate, and 30 percent wanted to lower it.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1754033 ... t/?photo=2

You kinda inadvertently posted why NASA budgets are shrinking, because it initially was also viewed as defense spending. Now that US won the space race and is far more advanced spending is decreasing.


P.S. If you ever meet one of those 4000 yrs old universe guys tell them hi, since I have never known one.

[Miktay]

Another NASA nancy story...

ok, why do you say that?

NASA badly needs a compelling reason for funding support.

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

...or wait nevermind. I now realize ur one of those '4000 old universe' guys.

I think you meant 6000-12000 yrs

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

Another NASA nancy story...

ok, why do you say that?

NASA badly needs a compelling reason for funding support.

oh I thought you were saying finding water on Mars was improbable.

[stev]

...or wait nevermind. I now realize ur one of those '4000 old universe' guys.

I think you meant 6000-12000 yrs

[pluggie]

Does not change the price or bodi. Or bhagi.

Just now when man start to plant bodi and bhagi in Mars the price will increase f0kloads .... Cost to transport goods from Mars to debe market will be very high bru !!!

[3stagevtec]

[daas]

Would be nice if oil was found there....

[stev]

Would be nice if oil was found there....

oil? why?

u doh think its time humans start moving away from that crap?


come to think of it....if oil was found there, things would change drastically!!! NASA would be pumped full of money as well as the ESA...several other space agencies would start popping up as well.

exponential increase in technology!

...ok maybe not.

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

this is true

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

Would be nice if oil was found there....

oil? why?

u doh think its time humans start moving away from that crap?


come to think of it....if oil was found there, things would change drastically!!! NASA would be pumped full of money as well as the ESA...several other space agencies would start popping up as well.

exponential increase in technology!

...ok maybe not.

India has had one of their space craft orbiting Mars for over a year now. It arrived there on September 24 2014.

[daas]

Would be nice if oil was found there....

oil? why?

u doh think its time humans start moving away from that crap?


come to think of it....if oil was found there, things would change drastically!!! NASA would be pumped full of money as well as the ESA...several other space agencies would start popping up as well.

exponential increase in technology!

...ok maybe not.

Calm down steve. I'm just saying, in this capitalistic world, and with the increasing power of the private sector it would be an interesting thought.

[desifemlove]

this is true

"robots" does need dihydrogen monoxide to live......finders keepers/iz ah dog eat dog world (or solar system..)