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Water seems to flow freely on Mars
- Nicholas_C 13y agoOh how I wish Mars had a thicker atmosphere.
- throwaway_yy2Di 13y agoYou'll love this! http://wikitravel.org/en/South_Pole http://wikitravel.org/en/South_Pole Rocks, water ice, and a thick atmosphere with oxygen. For only 0.00001% the price of a Mars vacation.
- throwaway_yy2Di 13y agoI'm half joking, but I'm worried someone will try to sell spaceplane trips to some inhospitable alien desert like Namibia and market it as "the interplanetary experience"... edit: Actually that could be interesting..
- wpietri 13y agoOoh, I'll happily build the spaceship's "earth communication unit" so it has realistic delay: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/614795/simulate-delayed-and-dropped-packets-on-linux http://stackoverflow.com/questions/614795/simulate-delayed-a...
- lgieron 13y agoDeath Valley in California is good enough for that IMO.
- jff 13y agoWhy worry? Who cares if somebody wants to fly over Namibia and pretend they're looking at Mars?
- jotm 13y agoHey, don't give people stupid ideas :-). But really, that could pretty cool (until you find out you were duped).
- GotAnyMegadeth 13y ago"Drink As the Pole is entirely covered by a massive ice sheet, those with the ability to melt ice should not worry about lack of water."
- NAFV_P 13y agoSet up a distillery to make martian whiskey, it would cost a bomb.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- a1a 13y agoSome time and funds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Mars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Mars. I strongly suggest we start a kickstarter.
- yawz 13y agoYou've my 10 bucks.
- MildlySerious 13y ago$20 from me if that tier includes a shirt.
- novalis78 13y agoyou'll enjoy this: http://marscoin.org http://marscoin.org
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- stefantalpalaru 13y agoThis link (without the trailing '?') was submitted 5 days ago and it was ignored: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6884527 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6884527
- jds375 13y agoSo, how legitimate is this claim? I feel like we hear about this all of the time, only to be disappointed later after further analysis.
- rlpb 13y agoAs far as I can tell, this is not a claim at all. It is an observed phenomenon, for which the presence of water is one possible explanation.
- Cthulhu_ 13y agoAs far as I can see, shadows being the other one. Depending on the time of day / position of the sun of course, so it should be easy enough to rule that one out.
- Flenser 13y agoCould it also be explained by saltation[1]? If avalanches can behave like a fluid due to a saltation layer, and saltation can happen to sand particles in wind, then couldn't the streaks be caused by sand/wind instead of water? Any geologists reading that could offer an opinion? Would this part of the article support this hypothesis: > Some of the streaks seem to begin at the tops of ridges, too close to the surface to easily be explained by subsurface aquifers [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saltation_(geology) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saltation_(geology)
- rlpb 13y agoIt is also possible that there are a number of other explanations that nobody has considered. Ruling out shadows doesn't confirm water.
- cygwin98 13y agoWhy not send a drone plane together with the Curiosity? It sounds more efficient doing exploration from sky than land. I get that the weather could be a problem. Anyway, just food for thought.
- ortusdux 13y agoNot enough atmosphere to generate lift. Same reason we can't fly satellites into orbit.
- artmageddon 13y agoSilly question, but why is it that we can't fly a satellite into the orbit of Mars? What is it about the space 300 miles up from Earth that differs from Mars? (unless we also want to discuss geosynchronous orbit) Edit: I should have written "launch" a satellite into Orbit from Earth to Mars
- quux 13y agoActually we currently have 3 satellites orbiting Mars: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Artificial_satellites_orbiting_Mars http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Artificial_satellite...
- 1wheel 13y ago"Same reason we can't fly satellites into orbit [of Earth]"
- el_zorro 13y agoOrbit isn't about going up - it's about going sideways so fast that the planet curves away just as fast as you fall towards it. While you can use the atmosphere to lift yourself up to a certain extent, it doesn't help you achieve orbit. The 100km boundary for space on Earth isn't picked as just a clean number - it's the altitude at which a plane would have to fly at orbital speeds to generate the required lift, and if you're going orbital speeds you don't need lift. I know this doesn't exactly answer your question, but it might help to frame it better.
- drcode 13y agoI know this is an unpopular opinion here but: NASA needs to stop milking the "water on mars" thing. Every few months it seems their PR department lazily says to themselves "Hey! let's do another water on mars story!" (I know, NASA doesn't do PR and these are just completely objective releases of scientific papers... believe what you will.) I hope within my lifetime we have some disruption in this space and NASA stops constantly taking blatant advantage of its near monopoly on space exploration.
- krapp 13y agoHow would a private company "milking" science be any better?
- Havoc 13y ago>NASA needs to stop milking the "water on mars" thing. Perhaps. I'm inclined to cut NASA some slack though - they are in a tricky catch 22 position: To get spectacular results they need funding and to get funding they need spectacular results. So I'm all for them milking whatever seems viable. >its near monopoly on space exploration. When it comes to space exploration I tend to agree with Nike & their slogan. I really don't care whether the US or the Chinese does it as long as someone acts. Same thing with costs...humanity as a whole needs to get off this rock to have any hope of long term survival. If it takes X billion USD...who cares? Raise some notional debt ceiling if you must...
- genwin 13y ago> humanity as a whole needs to get off this rock to have any hope of long term survival Or, people could have <= 2 kids on average. Seems more achievable to me than terraforming another planet.
- Havoc 13y agoAgreed. Your answer is entirely sound. We are talking past each other here though. We are talking about fundamentally different time scales here: I was thinking more asteroid hitting earth / nuclear MAD. Sooner or latter something scary is going to screw over earth. Given sufficient time its inevitable - earth is going to die...maybe tomorrow, maybe in a billion years. If it happens tomorrow...so be it. Nothing can be done about that. If it happens in 200 years & humanity didn't plan for it then I'd say humanity fcked up things in royal style. Thats also why I don't care whether the US/russians/chinese make progress...they're all humanity in my book. Terraforming - admittedly not happening right now. Forget terraforming. I just want to see progress. The above risks are real & we don't have an answer right now. Fine - so be it. Republicans & democrats arguing about debt ceilings and NASA budgets...that I have little patience for. As I said - Nike slogan. How exactly progress is achieve - I really don't care as long as it happens. Frankly I'm thankful that the Chinese are playing the space race. Their political structure and resource allocation seems uniquely well suited to said nike slogan approach. During the Apollo era the US gov had both the political will & the public support. In short - they were invincible & the outcome was certain. If a nation like the US is collectively hell bent on putting a man on the moon...then a man shall walk on the moon. The US has lost that spirit & right now the Chinese are humanities best hope - yes the US has mars ambitions - it'll go nowhere. This I'm certain of - unless something drastic changes. Compare the __ emotional content __ of Kennedy's moon speech vs current NASA budget cuts. Forget budgets, technical ability etc...just emotional content. That is why I'm cheering for the Chinese - they have the will power and the resources. The US has politicians squabbling about budgets.
- jboggan 13y agoIs anyone else tired of hearing about the dangers of interplanetary contamination, particularly from the Earth to Mars? I want to see the whole place terraformed and I can't imagine that we'd be so successful in our lifetimes that we'd wipe out whatever scientifically interesting traces of extant Martian flora there are. Whether or not there was life on Mars is a fascinating question, but I think the more important one is when will we expand life on Mars?
- kamakazizuru 13y agoright, this is pretty much the attitude with which colonial powers approached new continents. The universe was not built for humans alone - if there is life there - which in its current form is unable to protect itself - it is our duty to protect it and leave it untouched - not kill it in hordes and put the remaining few in reserves and allow them to open casinos as a consolation prize. EDIT: On the other hand - if it is life that can protect itself - i.e. - attack human explorers or cause unintentional harm to them - then we also need to be able to understand that in an isolated environment before we just touchdown and put up our IKEA stuff..
- mattzito 13y agoThough if we do put martian bacteria in reservations en masse, I call dibs on teaching them how craps works.
- JoeAltmaier 13y agoWe're not talking indigenous tribes here; its maybe some (unsuccessful) bacteria. You willfully destroy these every time you use mouthwash. Lets not get all PC about some stains on some dirt on a rock somewhere.
- bronson 13y agoYou're implying that the inside of your mouth and the landscape of Mars are more or less equivalent?
- sidcool 13y agoIf true, this is huge.
- feelthepain 13y agoI think the key part of this research is that this adds significantly to the evidence that there's liquid water deep in the crust of Mars. We know that there is water in the form of ice in lots of places on Mars but the idea of subsurface liquid water is exciting because there might be life in there! If it's gushing up to the surface periodically, we might even be able to sample it and see if there's signs of life! There's been previous evidence of these streaks before - but researchers had generally thought that was due to ice melting during the planet's warm season. Now they've found "streaks near the equator, including in the gargantuan Valles Marineris canyon". Any subsurface ice here would likely have sublimated. So it's looking pretty likely that this is subsurface liquid water that is leaking out from time to time. An alternative explanation - dust avalanches - was offered when the same scientists unveiled their initial results back in 2011. With the observation of so many streaks at the equator now the simplest explanation appears to be groundwater welling up to the surface. Similar streaks on Antarctica are known to be caused by water.
- jusben1369 13y agoLet's suppose there is water there and we could somehow take advantage of it. Why would human's be inclined to spend any time on Mars?
- Pxtl 13y agoHunting for liquid water on mars is mostly about trying to find life. If there's anything living on Mars, it'll be in the water.
- rfnslyr 13y agoCan you imagine what it would be like finding some sort of living organism observable by the human eye? That would be the most profound moment ever.
- Pxtl 13y agoIt would be, but realistically any liquid ecosystem on Mars is just too small for respectable evolution. It'll be a miracle if it's more complicated than Earth's prokaryotic microbes. But then, it'll be a miracle if we find anything at all.
- alixaxel 13y agoSo Curiosity and all the other rovers are not sterilized?!
- sebnukem2 13y agoActually I was thinking: wouldn't the exposure of hardware in the cold space vacuum sterilize everything?
- vignesh_vs_in 13y agoApparently not http://science1.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/1998/ast01sep98_1/ http://science1.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/1998/a...
- fixedd 13y agoand if you keep going down the rabbit hole you'll end up here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia
- ondross 13y agoIf this water evaporates so quickly, there must be a ton of it. Or else wouldn't it have run out by now?
- andyhmltn 13y agoI'm by no means an expert but wouldn't it work the same way as earth as in the evaporated water would make it back down to the surface and repeaet?
- thret 13y ago"spacecraft will probably have to steer clear of them unless the craft are carefully sterilized" Question: How could they still be carrying live earth bacteria after the trip? What kind of sterilization is going to be more effective than interplanetary travel?
- gdw2 13y agoThere was a post on HN a little while back about the possibility of a large earth impact event sending debris into space which would take life from earth to Saturn's moon. I guess some single-celled organisms are very resilient.
- LizVerano 13y agoThis is awesome!
- rms 13y agoMars really doesn't seem that bad; it's just too cold and you can't breathe the air.
- babby 13y agoActually the major issues are; low atmospheric pressure and radiation (which is related to atmosphere density, as is temperature). So live underground in air-tight domes, at least in the beginning before industry takes off. To actually fix the cold, pressure and breath-ability? My bet is on either a heavily optimized artificially created vegetation that exploits Mar's soils enough to generate greenhouse gases, or, more realistically, shit loads of (or massive) machines doing that same thing. Here's to hoping 3D printing-esque evolutions in technology and automation permit this to happen within 150 years instead of 500.