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NASA Images Suggest Water Still Flows on Mars
Guest_AlexBlackwell_*
post Dec 6 2006, 08:03 PM
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QUOTE (volcanopele @ Dec 6 2006, 09:15 AM) *
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 tongue.gif

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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ElkGroveDan
post Dec 6 2006, 08:03 PM
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QUOTE (vmcgregor @ Dec 6 2006, 11:53 AM) *
Additional multimedia products (video, podcast, slideshow) have been added to the JPL homepage at www.jpl.nasa.gov

-Veronica McGregor
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Welcome to UMSF Veronica
(from one silently suffering media relations person to another)


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John M. Dollan
post Dec 6 2006, 08:27 PM
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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...


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Paolo
post Dec 6 2006, 08:29 PM
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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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climber
post Dec 6 2006, 08:30 PM
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QUOTE (ElkGroveDan @ Dec 6 2006, 07:12 PM) *
We now have a new unit of measure; Swimming Pools.

I was sure YOU'll pick this one up biggrin.gif
BTW, they had another one but can't remeber what it was; Swimming Pools is good enough anyway wink.gif


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climber
post Dec 6 2006, 08:38 PM
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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 wink.gif to Doug. When you interview Jim Bell, your line is still much better than Ames' biggrin.gif


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Stu
post Dec 6 2006, 08:40 PM
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"Interesting"?

blink.gif

"INTERESTING?"

blink.gif blink.gif huh.gif blink.gif huh.gif

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?? wink.gif

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...

Attached Image


... 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... wink.gif


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John M. Dollan
post Dec 6 2006, 08:46 PM
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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...


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volcanopele
post Dec 6 2006, 08:48 PM
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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 ohmy.gif


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Guest_AlexBlackwell_*
post Dec 6 2006, 08:57 PM
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QUOTE (volcanopele @ Dec 6 2006, 10:48 AM) *
I'm not a vulcan, either, I'm an Ionian, and red-hot, ultramafic lava flows through my veins...

And through your basilar and carotid arteries, too cool.gif
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ngunn
post Dec 6 2006, 09:01 PM
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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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climber
post Dec 6 2006, 09:07 PM
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QUOTE (volcanopele @ Dec 6 2006, 09:48 PM) *
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 wink.gif ). 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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Stu
post Dec 6 2006, 09:10 PM
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QUOTE (volcanopele @ Dec 6 2006, 08:48 PM) *
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. smile.gif

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... wink.gif

The future just shifted beneath our feet, settling into a new structure and pattern. Surely someone else felt it too? smile.gif

(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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climber
post Dec 6 2006, 09:10 PM
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QUOTE (ngunn @ Dec 6 2006, 10:01 PM) *
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
Attached Image

Attached Image

Attached Image


smile.gif


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Stu
post Dec 6 2006, 09:16 PM
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Pics...

Attached Image


Attached Image


Attached Image


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