NASA to Announce Mars Mystery Solved on sept 28th

originally posted by: deadeyedick
There big news was that the news was 10+ yrs old but they had a neat cgi they created.

Well, they began hypothesizing and speculating 10 years ago that the dark streaks might be water, but that hypothesis and speculation had no evidence...

...unless you are the type of person to blindly believe every hypothesis and piece of speculation without evidence.

After years of gathering many different data sets from several different satellites in orbit, they finally could piece together enough evidence for them to feel confident that the dark streaks are liquid water, and the water causing the streaks is able to exist in the low atmospheric pressure because of the water's brininess.

originally posted by: openminded2011
a reply to: Mastronaut

I dont really subscribe to the "wherever there is water there is life" rationalization. This is true on this planet, which has a dense atmosphere and strong magnetic field that allows cells to exist with relatively little radiation degradation. Mars still has an environment that is largely lethal to earth like life. We might find some microbes living deep under the surface there, but its doubtful we would find anything complex, even multicellular.

You may be correct, but I have a different opinion. Mainly, I think that life on other planets would have evolved within different parameters. Life on Mars could have evolved to compensate somehow for differing magnet fields, differing levels or radiation and differing atmospheric pressures and make up. What is Lethal on Mars to most earth life forms could be life sustaining to Mars life and thus the opposite would be true, earth would be lethal to life from Mars.

Before you murder me with logic, keep in mind that this is just my theory and not fact. I realize that. lol

originally posted by: amazing

originally posted by: openminded2011
a reply to: Mastronaut

I dont really subscribe to the "wherever there is water there is life" rationalization. This is true on this planet, which has a dense atmosphere and strong magnetic field that allows cells to exist with relatively little radiation degradation. Mars still has an environment that is largely lethal to earth like life. We might find some microbes living deep under the surface there, but its doubtful we would find anything complex, even multicellular.

You may be correct, but I have a different opinion. Mainly, I think that life on other planets would have evolved within different parameters. Life on Mars could have evolved to compensate somehow for differing magnet fields, differing levels or radiation and differing atmospheric pressures and make up. What is Lethal on Mars to most earth life forms could be life sustaining to Mars life and thus the opposite would be true, earth would be lethal to life from Mars.

Before you murder me with logic, keep in mind that this is just my theory and not fact. I realize that. lol

No no, dont be like that.. It IS fact...Its called EVOLUTION.
Once Mars had an abundance of species, in time the planet
grew inhospitable. During that time, some species evolved
to be able to cope with the changing environment. Just like
here...
And just to be clear...It´s perfectly logical...

originally posted by: MystikMushroom

originally posted by: stargatetravels
Awesome - flowing water on Mars.
We're getting closer and closer guys!!

Just another 50 years and we'll know how much salt is in that water! With another batch of remote controlled cars!

*sigh*

I wish I was a billionaire and could just throw money at scientists and scream, "GET ME THERE!".

I'm convinced that even if I did that, "someone" would gently convince me to slow down. You can make anything happen if you throw enough money at it, and I'm sure there are wealthy people that would want to expand our space program. I wonder who is convincing them to slow down or stop...

You KNOW who they are


The Vulcans.......

originally posted by: Voldster

originally posted by: Denoli
Why do people think the earth is special ?
There's life everywhere in the universe,
And water everywhere, same old American
Approach , were the best , no one has what we have blah blah blah .

If you didn't think water was on Mars were you been living ? MARS ?

Because it is until proven otherwise
We don't know that for a fact. You are hoping it does. There's a difference.
We don't know that for a fact. You are hoping it does. There's a difference.
What are you blabbering on about? Are you jelly?

You can "feel" water existed on Mars all you wanted before today, but today was the day water on Mars is confirmed.

See another American dumb ass comment !
I drink water everyday , do I have to prove or feel like I'll drink tomorrow ?

No somethings just don't need proving, because it's so bloody obvious .

mars.nasa.gov... sID=1858

New findings from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) provide the strongest evidence yet that liquid water flows intermittently on present-day Mars. Using an imaging spectrometer on MRO, researchers detected signatures of hydrated minerals on slopes where mysterious streaks are seen on the Red Planet. These darkish streaks appear to ebb and flow over time.

09.28.2015 article from NASA.

They have spectrometer images at the link provided.

a reply to: Topato

And the used the MRO to find the first photos of the "trails of something" back in 2011. It took them FOUR years to use the same orbiting platform to come to this conclusion?

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
a reply to: Topato

And the used the MRO to find the first photos of the "trails of something" back in 2011. It took them FOUR years to use the same orbiting platform to come to this conclusion?

I didn't even bother to "look" at this crap ... did they just acquire evidence that Mars had water once upon a time, and that there are likely water underground?

We sort of knew that 50 years ago ... they even made a movie on the topic, "total recall" or something like that.

When you find "microbes" from Mars, then you sorta "know" there WAS water there.

So, this isn't NEWS, and certainly no breakthrough. Of course, searching for "more" evidence than microbes or "other" evidence to support the "microbes", is an "of course".

Whose the moron, that gave these "politicians" the key to NASA? This isn't science, it's politics ... What ARE they saying?

"Oh my GOD, we gotta look out ... we must enforce Carbon Dioxide TAXES, otherwise we will end up like MARS ... cold and desolate".

Which is IGNORING facts ...

What we already KNOW is this ... throughout the ages, millions of years ... climate changes have occurred, to to STELLAR POSITIONS, that are caused by several cyclic STELLAR events. When the "heat" on the earth rises, carbon lifeforms increase, which cause the increase of vegetation and finally an increase mammal lifeform, and then *end*, another cycle starts. We are AT or CLOSE TO the end of this cycle. But it isn't you or I breaking wind that causes it, us breaking wind causes an increase in vegetation which causes an increase in human beings ... and finally ...

We didn't cause the climate change ... WE ARE THE CONSEQUENCE OF THE CLIMATE CHANGE.

And we are more than likely to end like the rabbits ... eating ourselves out of the vegetation ... unless somebody starts to make this (void) that currently just succumbs money, CREATE something we DON'T know. Instead of coming out with political statements that the earth isn't growing, but is. That is a political statement, not science.

a reply to: bjarneorn

Well, they used the MRO and found these dark streaks that showed up and disappeared seasonally. Then then used the MRO's spectrometer to analyze more of these dark streaks...and it took them FOUR years apparently to do this.

I mean, what did they think caused these streaks? Gatorade? Brawndo? It doesn't take a rocket scientist (well, I guess it might have actually) to see that back in 2011 when the pictures were released that they had pretty definantive evidence.

If I recally correctly they made just as big of a deal about the photos in a 2011 press conference as they did on this today.

*yawn* Really NASA? Really? It took us 7 years to go from first man to orbit the Earth to landing a man on the Moon and returning him home. 40+ years ago.

And we're sending glorified R/C cars to Mars, hitching rides to a glorified tree fort in low Earth orbit with Russians to watch lettuce grow and stare at spiders making microgravity webs.

It just goes to show you that if the money isn't there -- we'll just fart around. I don't get it though, if I had Elon Musk money I'd be pouring money over people's heads. I'd show up with stacks of cash on pallets to buy the best scientists to get me to Mars.

"Sir, the best aerospace engineer works for Lockheed already..."

"I don't care, money may mean something to you people but not to me. Give him 500 million and see him say no."

For some reason though we're being fed awesome Sci-Fi books, movies and video games...but we're not "allowed" to do any of it. It's almost like funding is intentionally cut, and private space projects are intentionally delayed and slowed down.

I've seen how they drill oil in the arctic. They have entry ways that are like air locks. All the buildings are modular and assembled on-site. The modules are all on pylons and built off the surface to prevent the wind from pilling up snow drifts. A touring NASA astronaut even commented, "It's like living on Mars!"

The profit to be made from the oil made people work like crazy, around the clock 365 days a year. New engineering challenges had to be tackled to drill up there. New technologies were pioneered.

So I know, if you throw enough money at something -- nothing is impossible.

If they detect water on Mars than there could be life and finding life would be an unbelievable event.

I don't believe a word of it.

Why not going to the moon? Time and costs would be far less than going to Mars.

From www.evawaseerst.be...

Water and life: There’s a lot of water (in the form of ice) on the moon (regolith also is containing the elements to make water but that again is another story). No doubt about that ice for forty years. And where there is ice there could be life. Finding a primitive life form on the moon would make the cost of a manned moon trip a negligible factor.

So what would the water look like on Mars? Something like this:-

news.psu.edu...

?

Keep trying to find an artist impression, but all i can find is these inferred photos, which i don't really understand.

There are some animals that live on Mars. Some of them look like Earth boars. I wonder when NASA will come out and reveal that?

Ah, the everlasting stand-off between the armchair "experts" who say "we knew about this all along" and scientists who follow the strict scientific method and make anouncements based on careful research and testing.

As much as I like alternative views and the whole excitement about Earth-like envirnoments and possible alien life forms, I think it's better if we stick with the thorough and strict scientific method, which space agencies like NASA or ESA employ.

Fantasies and idieas are great to enterntain; carefully-examined data is what we should base our worldview on.

The jackwagon pessimism on this thread is just pathetic. NASA took their time AND GOT EVIDENCE before they drew a conclusion. Looks like MANY OF YOU on this thread could learn that lesson.

a reply to: jaffo

How hard is it to notice NaCl (salt) in a spectral graph? Salt doesn't flow like a liquid unless it is in a carrier solution. It wasn't gatorade, beer, liquid methane or liquid nitrogen...so the only obvious answer is: water.

It also explains why it disappears the way it does, as the pressure on Mars causes it to boil off.

If you're taking pictures with the MRO and also using the MRO's spectral analyzer ... even with low-bandwith and data transmission times, it shouldn't take 4 years to notice salt in those dark streaks.

Sometimes I feel like NASA is playing with Duplo blocks instead of big-boy LEGO bricks.

Yes, string us along with another little tidbit well they sit on the whole crate of biscuits. I don't care if they found water or something that might be a microbe, I'm tired of stories of Earth-like planets a million light years away and asteroids that might be headed for us. When they have something real and solid that I can see, I'll gladly listen. They know more than they let on and the million steps to disclosure thing is getting old.

originally posted by: korath
...I'm tired of stories of Earth-like planets a million light years away and asteroids that might be headed for us. When they have something real and solid that I can see, I'll gladly listen.

I guess you are being hyperbolic, but they have yet to be able to detect a planet a million light years away. The farthest away planet that they have detected is about 25,000 light years away.

However, they have detected planets in our own galaxy that are a few dozen or a couple hundred light years away, and they are "real and solid". In fact, they think that within a a few decades, they will have the technological ability to be able to determine if any of those planets have life-processes occurring on them by analyzing the spectra of their atmospheres.

Finding good evidence of life by analyzing the atmosphere of a planet 100 light years away seems like a pretty solid thing to me.

The rivulets — if that's what they are, since the evidence for their existence is indirect...

Spectral analysis is not such an exacting science as is commonly thought, there are many ways the data can be affected. There are millions of spectral lines and more are identified all the time. In many cases, they make assumptions based on what they believe should be present, and then look for lines that support their assumptions.

Our findings strongly support the hypothesis that recurring slope lineae form as a result of contemporary water activity on Mars.

www.nature.com...

... yet no direct evidence for either liquid water or hydrated salts has been found

It is still a hypothesis.

And:

If there is liquid water on Mars, no one—not even NASA—can get anywhere near it

qz.com...

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
How hard is it to notice NaCl (salt) in a spectral graph? Salt doesn't flow like a liquid unless it is in a carrier solution. It wasn't gatorade, beer, liquid methane or liquid nitrogen...so the only obvious answer is: water.

I don't think there is an obvious answer, as while gatorade is highly unlikely, other liquids are possible

If you're taking pictures with the MRO and also using the MRO's spectral analyzer ... even with low-bandwith and data transmission times, it shouldn't take 4 years to notice salt in those dark streaks.

After reading the paper available on Nature's site, it was more a question of knowing what to look for, choose the locations to study and create the ways of finding what they were looking for, as it sounds like they used publicly available data.

Sometimes I feel like NASA is playing with Duplo blocks instead of big-boy LEGO bricks.

Only one of the team's elements is connected to NASA, the main author of the paper (and the one that created the methodology used and did the data analysis), Lujendra Ojha, is a Georgia Institute of Technology graduate student, so it looks like this isn't a NASA study. Also, this page, from February 2014 talks about what looks like the same paper, so it looks like this work was presented now but made some time ago.

a reply to: ArMaP

You get the spectral signature for the streaks, notice high concentrations of NaCl. I would then say to myself, "I wonder how a bunch of salt is leaking out of the ground seasonally?.."

To me it seems like a no-brainer....

So it was a graduate student? That make a whole bunch more sense now actually.