NASA Images Suggest Water Still Flows on Mars Options

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

Dec. 4, 2006

Dwayne Brown/Erica Hupp
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726/1237

Guy Webster
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-6278

MEDIA ADVISORY: M06-186

NASA SCHEDULES BRIEFING TO ANNOUNCE SIGNIFICANT FIND ON MARS

WASHINGTON - NASA hosts a news briefing at 1 p.m. EST, Wednesday, Dec.
6, to present new science results from the Mars Global Surveyor. The
briefing will take place in the NASA Headquarters auditorium located
at 300 E Street, S.W. in Washington and carried live on NASA
Television and www.nasa.gov.

The agency last week announced the spacecraft's mission may be at its
end. Mars Global Surveyor has served the longest and been the most
productive of any spacecraft ever sent to the red planet. Data
gathered from the mission will continue to be analyzed by scientists.


Panelists include:
- Michael Meyer -- Lead Scientist, Mars Exploration Program, NASA
Headquarters, Washington
- Michael Malin -- President and Chief Scientist, Malin Space Science
Systems, San Diego, Calif.
- Kenneth Edgett -- Scientist, Malin Space Science Systems
- Philip Christensen -- Professor, Arizona State University, Tempe,
Ariz.

[remcook]

very nice summaries on the msss page. Something else to look at with more detail with HiRISE perhaps?

edit-downloads on: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars/main/index.html

[tuvas]

very nice summaries on the msss page. Something else to look at with more detail with HiRISE perhaps?

edit-downloads on: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars/main/index.html

I'd be willing to bet that it's far more likely to have CRISM follow up then HiRISE, although HiRISE will almost certainly photograph these areas quite soon (I have no idea when, so...)

[SteveM]

I'd be willing to bet that it's far more likely to have CRISM follow up then HiRISE, although HiRISE will almost certainly photograph these areas quite soon (I have no idea when, so...)

I'd be willing to bet that when CRISM focuses on these gullies they'll find salts of some kind. I'd even put a smaller wager on sulphate salts. As Steve Squyres mentioned in response to a question at Open University, the "water" on mars is acidic and inhospitable to life. That suggests that this AP article may be premature.

Martian find raises chances of life
ALICIA CHANG
ASSOCIATED PRESS
December 6, 2006
...
"This underscores the importance of searching for life on Mars, either present or past," said Bruce Jakosky, an astrobiologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder, who had no role in the study. "It's one more reason to think that life could be there.''
...

Steve

[tglotch]

I'd be willing to bet that when CRISM focuses on these gullies they'll find salts of some kind. I'd even put a smaller wager on sulphate salts. As Steve Squyres mentioned in response to a question at Open University, the "water" on mars is acidic and inhospitable to life. That suggests that this AP article may be premature.
Steve

Well, we have evidence from two landing sites for acidic water in the form of sulfates. But don't forget that OMEGA has found plenty of evidence for gypsum and kieserite all over Mars, which are neutral salts and don't necessarily imply an acidic envrionment.