NASA Images Suggest Water Still Flows on Mars |
NASA Images Suggest Water Still Flows on Mars |
Guest_AlexBlackwell_* |
Dec 6 2006, 08:03 PM
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#46
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I wouldn't go THAT far. It is interesting, but the news that Mars gets hit by impact craters, and that gullies are present-day phenomena (given the crater counts on previously observed gullies) isn't that shocking. Interesting, but not shocking. I would put it on the level of the discovery of lakes on Titan, a discovery which just confirmed that we were at least on the right track with Titan. Oh Jason, your outer planets biases are showing I think any scientist would agree that liquid water flowing at the surface or near-surface of present-day Mars is more than merely "interesting." This post has been edited by AlexBlackwell: Dec 6 2006, 08:31 PM |
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Dec 6 2006, 08:03 PM
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#47
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Senior Member Group: Admin Posts: 4763 Joined: 15-March 05 From: Glendale, AZ Member No.: 197 |
Additional multimedia products (video, podcast, slideshow) have been added to the JPL homepage at www.jpl.nasa.gov -Veronica McGregor JPL Media Relations Welcome to UMSF Veronica (from one silently suffering media relations person to another) -------------------- If Occam had heard my theory, things would be very different now.
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Dec 6 2006, 08:27 PM
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#48
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 21 Joined: 31-January 05 From: Havre, MT Member No.: 163 |
Considering the rate that the Earth intercepts meteors, and adding to that Mars' thinner atmopshere, would it not stand to reason that impacts would reach the surface much, much more often?
And if that is true, what does it say about those regions that are relatively crater-free? Could there be some active geology involved, or are Martian aeolian forces enough to erase some of these smaller craters? ...John, curious as always... -------------------- "To make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe..."
-- Carl Sagan |
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Dec 6 2006, 08:29 PM
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#49
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1729 Joined: 3-August 06 From: 43° 35' 53" N 1° 26' 35" E Member No.: 1004 |
Are artillery projectile-probes like these http://web.mit.edu/iang/www/pubs/artillery_05.pdf the only method suggested so far to explore the gullies?
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Dec 6 2006, 08:30 PM
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#50
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2922 Joined: 14-February 06 From: Very close to the Pyrénées Mountains (France) Member No.: 682 |
We now have a new unit of measure; Swimming Pools. I was sure YOU'll pick this one up BTW, they had another one but can't remeber what it was; Swimming Pools is good enough anyway -------------------- |
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Dec 6 2006, 08:38 PM
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#51
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2922 Joined: 14-February 06 From: Very close to the Pyrénées Mountains (France) Member No.: 682 |
While listening to the show, a question crossed my mind : OK we can see gullies 5-10 Swimming Pools big but DO smaller ones exist? I mean smaller than MGS resolution i.e. the one MRO could see...
If Mickael Malin dam theory is right this could provide smaller one to occur but I'm looking forward to MRO pictures of the 2 gullies presented tonight as well as all bright one that are probably quite recent if I understood correctly. PS : a to Doug. When you interview Jim Bell, your line is still much better than Ames' -------------------- |
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Dec 6 2006, 08:40 PM
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#52
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The Poet Dude Group: Moderator Posts: 5551 Joined: 15-March 04 From: Kendal, Cumbria, UK Member No.: 60 |
"Interesting"?
"INTERESTING?" Are you a VULCAN volcanopele [corrected] ?!!!! Does cold, coppery green blood flow through those veins? Did your left eyebrow merely lift quizically when you saw those images when you peered into your science monitor?? Do you know how long many of us "Out here" have been waiting for these images and this news? What we have there is the strongest evidence yet for Mars being a potential habitat for life, nothing more, nothing less. And I know some sticks in the fresh martian mud will say that that's too optimistic, too simplistic and going over the top - I don't care!!!!! I want to go out and laugh at the sky now! Look at the pictures!! Something poured out down those crater walls for a while. Something... wonderful... Something that is calling to us, siren-like, "Come and look more closely... come... come..." Imagine standing there, on the rim of that crater, and seeing a gully in flow... ... imagine feeling the rumble beneath your boots as the water breaks through and starts to gush... imagine seeing the water steaming and boiling in the low atmospheric pressure, sliding and slavering down the crater wall's slopes, dying even as you watched it... imagine watching the gushing stop, and the last of the free water evaporate away, leaving behind a glistening snakeskin of freshly-exposed salts, covered with glinting frost, like someone has spilled molten glass from above... Doesn't that make you feel amazed?! We thought we knew Mars but we don't. We were fooling ourselves all along. It has secrets still, locked away in its rocks, maybe even just a gloved hand's depth beneath its dusty surface. Imagine that, an evolved monkey's hand trailing through the dust of Mars, its fingers digging down, down... what would it find...? I know this post might seem over the top but I'm sorry, I'm on a high right now and in no mood to be cold and scientific. There wasn't just water on Mars a billion, a million or a thousand years ago, there was water there a couple of years ago, flowing... and there probably is now, as I type this. The implications of that are enormous, simply enormous. We should be celebrating, not downplaying it. Go on volcanopele, put a party hat on, I dare ya... -------------------- |
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Dec 6 2006, 08:46 PM
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#53
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 21 Joined: 31-January 05 From: Havre, MT Member No.: 163 |
Stu...
Where did you find that image? It is absolutely, stunningly beautiful! Please, is it some kind of public image, or is it covered by copyright? I'd love to use it on one of my websites.... ...John... -------------------- "To make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe..."
-- Carl Sagan |
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Dec 6 2006, 08:48 PM
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#54
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Senior Member Group: Moderator Posts: 3242 Joined: 11-February 04 From: Tucson, AZ Member No.: 23 |
I'm not tuvas. I'm not a vulcan, either, I'm an Ionian, and red-hot, ultramafic lava flows through my veins... My reaction was that this news was interesting and that I wanted to see those features in HiRISE images. But, no, I didn't get all that excited. Maybe it is my outer planets bias, but flowing, boiling acidic water just isn't as exciting as huge lava flows on Io, the Earth-like geology of Titan, the geysers of Triton, or I dare say, the ocean on Europa.
EDIT: I forgot Enceladus' geysers, how silly of me -------------------- &@^^!% Jim! I'm a geologist, not a physicist!
The Gish Bar Times - A Blog all about Jupiter's Moon Io |
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Guest_AlexBlackwell_* |
Dec 6 2006, 08:57 PM
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#55
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Guests |
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Dec 6 2006, 09:01 PM
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#56
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3516 Joined: 4-November 05 From: North Wales Member No.: 542 |
I can't get either the msss or nasa links to work (Are they awash with hits?) so I've still only seen one pair of pictures on a BBC TV news screen. Could somebody post just the pictures?
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Dec 6 2006, 09:07 PM
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#57
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2922 Joined: 14-February 06 From: Very close to the Pyrénées Mountains (France) Member No.: 682 |
I'm not tuvas. I'm not a vulcan, either, I'm an Ionian, and red-hot, ultramafic lava flows through my veins... My reaction was that this news was interesting and that I wanted to see those features in HiRISE images. But, no, I didn't get all that excited. Maybe it is my outer planets bias, but flowing, boiling acidic water just isn't as exciting as huge lava flows on Io, the Earth-like geology of Titan, the geysers of Triton, or I dare say, the ocean on Europa. I'm not Stu (you'd better change to Stugully now ). I get the point volcanopele and I also love "your" places, but we'll go physicaly to Mars ONE full century before the places you're talking about...and THAT is exciting... -------------------- |
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Dec 6 2006, 09:10 PM
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#58
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The Poet Dude Group: Moderator Posts: 5551 Joined: 15-March 04 From: Kendal, Cumbria, UK Member No.: 60 |
I'm not tuvas. I'm not a vulcan, either, I'm an Ionian, and red-hot, ultramafic lava flows through my veins... My reaction was that this news was interesting and that I wanted to see those features in HiRISE images. But, no, I didn't get all that excited. Maybe it is my outer planets bias, but flowing, boiling acidic water just isn't as exciting as huge lava flows on Io, the Earth-like geology of Titan, the geysers of Triton, or I dare say, the ocean on Europa. Apologies for the mistake, written in haste, I've corrected it. I agree that all your other things are exciting (except maybe the geysers of Triton... not too fussed about them), but they're a looooong way away, and we have no chance of seeing them up close and personal, with wide, startled human eyes, in our lifetimes or even two lifetimes after that. It's not the water itself that's exciting to me it's what it represents - a dynamic, warm-and-wet-in-places Mars - and what it teases, that there could be life there, right now. That "flowing, boiling acidic" water might be thick with microbes all shouting "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" as they fly through the air... admittedly mere seconds before dying a horrible death, but hey... The future just shifted beneath our feet, settling into a new structure and pattern. Surely someone else felt it too? (that pic, by the way, is one I've had on my computer for ages, can't even remember where I got it now, but I think it was from a space calendar a friend gave me... sorry I can't be of much more help...) -------------------- |
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Dec 6 2006, 09:10 PM
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#59
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2922 Joined: 14-February 06 From: Very close to the Pyrénées Mountains (France) Member No.: 682 |
I can't get either the msss or nasa links to work (Are they awash with hits?) so I've still only seen one pair of pictures on a BBC TV news screen. Could somebody post just the pictures? here's a link : http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2006-145 And images -------------------- |
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Dec 6 2006, 09:16 PM
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#60
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The Poet Dude Group: Moderator Posts: 5551 Joined: 15-March 04 From: Kendal, Cumbria, UK Member No.: 60 |
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