Is there life on Mars? NASA announces liquid water discovered

[webfact]

Is there life on Mars? NASA announces liquid water discovered



PARIS: -- Under certain circumstances, liquid water has been found on Mars. This was the out of this world announcement from NASA following years of exploration on the Red Planet.

Mars, to all appearances a frozen desert, is not the dry planet we originally thought it to be, said Jim Green, Director of Planetary Science.

“These discoveries are very important, but they were only part of the hydrological cycle on Mars, that we are just now beginning to understand. What we are going to announce today is that Mars is not that dry, arid planet we thought of in the past.”

Scientists revealed briny water may flow on the planet’s surface during its summer months.

Different soils sampled were found to be moist and full of water.

Dark streaks, known as recurring slope lineae, or RSL, are now known to have been caused by flowing water.

So what does this tell us about potential life on Mars? Exploration by the Curiosity Rover proves that billions of years ago it was once a planet similar to Earth.

If there was life when the Red Planet came into being, billions of years ago, did any survive? And could the planet support life today? Scientists say, technologically, we will now be able to answer those questions.

-- (c) Copyright Euronews 2015-09-29

[Kerryd]

Decades ago I learned about how the Earth was in the "comfort zone" around our star. It is a region of space around the sun where scientists think life is capable of existing. Closer to the sun - too hot (i.e. Mercury and Venus). Further away - too cold (i.e. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto).

Note I didn't mention Mars. Mars currently sits near the outer edge of the "comfort zone" while Earth is gradually moving into the "too hot" zone. Our sun is expanding ever so slowly and will eventually grow large enough to destroy the inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth) and probably make even Mars uninhabitable, but that will take another 5-7 billion years or so. As the sun expands, so does the comfort zone (and it is theorized that the orbits of the planets will increase as the sun gradually loses it's gravitational "pull"). This means that at some point in the future, conditions on Mars could be similar to what we have on Earth now. For awhile at least.

The problem is of course that it is quite possible that when Mars finally becomes "habitable" then the Earth may already be "uninhabitable" much like Venus is (which was probably "habitable" to a degree hundreds of millions of years ago). The other bad news is that we as a species probably won't be around long enough for it to matter anyways. With our current technologies it would take centuries, even millenniums, to create conditions on Mars that would allow normal habitation (without being confined to "bio-domes" and the like). Long before we could even consider some way to transfer large portions of our population to Mars, we will have virtually stripped this planet bare of resources. Some studies suggest that we are already have 3 times more people than the Earth can normally sustain. That means the available resources are already being consumed at faster rate than they can be replenished. There is only one realistic outcome from that, and that outcome will not leave us in any position to even contemplate colonizing another planet (think "The Walking Dead" but without the zombies, and a whole lot more of the "Governor" type characters).

But who knows ? Maybe as the shackles of religion fall away and science progresses at an exponential rate, we may find a way to make it work. After all, look how far we've advanced in just the last 112 years ! From the first (powered) manned flight to landing on the moon and sending nuclear powered rovers to Mars ! From the first crude "televisions" in the 1920s to full motion, colour videos on hand-held devices. You modern smartphone has more computing power than all the NASA computers in 1969 combined ! The newest phones can process more information at a faster speed than even the supercomputers of the 90's (like Deep Blue - the one they used to play a chess tournament against Gary Kasparov in 1997). (Note: that doesn't mean smart phones can actually do more, just that they can process more info at a faster speed.) The computer in the Apollo 11 Command Nodule weighed 70 lbs (31 kgs), had 64 kilobytes of RAM and an operating speed of 0.043 mhz. Compare to an iPhone 5 with 1 gigabyte of RAM and an operating speed of 1.5 ghz (and weighing just a few ounces).

What will things look like in the next hundred years ? Scientific utopia or Mad Max apocalypse ? Perhaps a "Divergent" type future of walled and fortified cities surrounded by barren wastelands ?

All going well, we could (most of us) still be here a hundred years from now to discuss how much has happened in the last hundred years (and to bitch about Visas, bar girls, double pricing and so on) ! (I suspect that some things will never change.)

[Seastallion]

Leaked footage...there is life!

https://youtu.be/dUsuFI9d3wE

[maidee]

all this money waisted, space race, nuclear missles, nasa, space exploration

if that money was spend on the people, and not for "face" with russia, than US would have known what FREE HEALTH CARE was about

[veyron18]

all this money waisted, space race, nuclear missles, nasa, space exploration

if that money was spend on the people, and not for "face" with russia, than US would have known what FREE HEALTH CARE was about

I really don't agree on this point Maidee. It is indeed very costly, but it is one of the very few things in this world that gather people in their dream or something better or at least different. The world often seems hopeless (at least to me) and every time I read news like that, I just travel a bit and feel like if we were going toward something new and not just nuclear missile engineering.

It also important to note that for most of space missions, it is a joint work between different nations and not just US. Phylea's one for exemple, got components, technology and funding from many countries.

[connda]

No duhhh. I don't think that's much of a revelation.

[Just1Voice]

Well, if there is life on the surface of Thailand, it only makes sense there would be life on Mars.

[Sviss Geez]

all this money waisted, space race, nuclear missles, nasa, space exploration

if that money was spend on the people, and not for "face" with russia, than US would have known what FREE HEALTH CARE was about

Shh, genius at work.

[alex8912]

Where in the world is that woman's accent from? When she says "water" it's lke a sound I've never heard

[arfurcrown]

All very well but my preference would have been and still is that ''beer' should be found on Mars.

Then all that money used in space exploration would be a justified expense.

[how241]

Well, if there is life on the surface of Thailand, it only makes sense there would be life on Mars.

ha ha ha ...