NASA Schedules Briefing to Announce Significant Find on Mars

Yes this is a new flow of water!! it was not there 4 years ago so is recent

www.usatoday.com...

Until now, the question of liquid water has focused on ancient Mars, and on the Martian north pole, where water ice has been detected. Scientists have long noted Martian features that appear to have been scoured by water or look like shorelines, and have tried to prove that the Red Planet had liquid water eons ago.

The 'skull & grave' picture can be found here:

www.marsanomalyresearch.com...

I am waiting for someone at NASA to say the skull pic is a trick of light and shadow.

I must admit, it is a very interesting pic.

Is it mean or has anyone noticed that the martian rovers were never near the skull pic/sadonia or the pic's where it is felt that they show liquid water

here's another link

www.nasa.gov...

NASA photographs have revealed bright new deposits seen in two gullies on Mars that suggest water carried sediment through them sometime during the past seven years.

"These observations give the strongest evidence to date that water still flows occasionally on the surface of Mars," said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program, Washington.

Has several pics, as well, showing a comparison of same area from 1999 and 2005.

Also confirms the MGS has still not been heard from since early November, this year.

And from above link -

www.nasa.gov...

With a much better array of pics.

[edit on 6-12-2006 by Jbird]

CNN just posted an article, there's also video here:

www.cnn.com...

From the article:

A provocative new study of photographs taken from orbit suggests that liquid water flowed on the surface of Mars as recently as several years ago...

Pretty cool, where there's water there's life...hopefully.

Spiderj


Edit to add: Thanks for the links Jbird...the second one was very helpful.


[edit on 12/6/2006 by Spiderj]

I'd still like to see some analysis of it ... maybe pictures from a different perspective as well (we all know how the "face" turned out to be just a perspective trick ... or was it haha). At any rate, this is sure to kick-start that race to build a moon base regardless of the actual composition of that material ...

some info from previous link

www.nasa.gov...

Figure D: To confirm that the new, light-toned gully deposit is not just a trick of changing illumination conditions as the sun rises to different levels in the sky each season, the Mars Orbiter Camera team repeatedly imaged this site throughout 2005 and 2006. Four examples are shown here, acquired in April 2005, August 2005, February 2006 and April 2006. The "i=" indicates solar-incidence angle, or the height of the sun in the local sky, relative to a case where the sun would be directly overhead (i=0 degrees). Thus, the higher the incidence angle, the lower the sun would appear in the sky to an observer on the ground.

Looks like they have that angle , somewhat covered, Fiverz.

[edit on 6-12-2006 by Jbird]

So now for the questions.

If this is flowing water, how did it survive the extremely low surface pressures on Mars?

And

Since there is no precipitation on mars (right?) it must have come from an underground resevoir. Is that resevoir frozen, or is it liquid?

What I missed during the news conference on NASA TV was the description of how the water would of 'acted' due to the gravity. My phone rang just as he was about to explain it.

Does anyone know what he said?

Originally posted by Jbird
Looks like they have that angle , somewhat covered, Fiverz.

Drum roll *ba dum ching!*

Thanks for the link!

Originally posted by Rasobasi420
Since there is no precipitation on mars (right?) it must have come from an underground resevoir. Is that resevoir frozen, or is it liquid?

Surely you can have a mass of ice under the surface, and occasionally have some of it melt into liquid form, long enough to trickle down a surface, before evaporating away, no?

So is this as significant as everyone thought it would be?

I mean water is some find..but not when its been found already


The skull is intresting tho

It wasn't 'a little' water. NASA mentioned 400-500 swimming pools worth.

Thats more than justa little melting ice.

Nice.

IT looks like they were just making sure they "got credit" for the discovery.

That is before the New MRO orbiter was able to image these gullies at a much higher resolution. A little scientific competition, thats a good thing.

Doesn't look like this water is in a liquid state for very long..

Apparently according to the guy I was watching on nasa tv if the water was more acidic then it could survive on the surface longer as its freezing point is lowered. I don’t see any news here. I thought they had already seen this before and there was some debate then about whether it was water or not. Also the guy at nasa said they discovered this in September 2005.

Also what do they mean water flowed [past tense] as recently as the last decade. So now it does not? Stupid. And the headlines read "water on mars" oh really.

Personally I think it’s just a wow factor thing for the sheeple to stop them thinking too much about this Iraq study.

Yes, It flowed in this region, and it isn't now. And the initial discovery cold have been in 2005, but if they came out and said "water on mars" they would have been a laughing stock if it wasn't .

As for this being a diversionary tactic from the situation in Iraq, I've always found this subject much more important than any war on Earth. It's one of those answers to the big questions. If anything Iraq is a global diversion from the really important issues.

Some first impression notes on those photos:

1) Why is the water blemish 1/2 down the side of the crater?
2) There are 4 distinct 'funnels' at the top edge of the crater directly above that water blemish, why did only one of them have enough 'water flow' to create the blemish?
3) At first guess, it looks like someone stood at the edge of the crater and took a whiz towards the center.

Aside from that, cool, lets go to mars and check this stuff out!

I was looking around to see how warm the surface even gets ... I thought to myself "wouldn't it stay too cold to actually ever run down a crater or the like"? Guess I was wrong:

The temperature at the planet's surface varies widely during the course of a Martian day, from about 186 K (-87 °C) just before dawn to about 253 K (-20 °C) in the afternoon.

hypertextbook.com...

And from good ol' wikipedia:

The melting point of water at 1 atmosphere of pressure is 0 °C (32 °F, 273.15 K), this is also known as the ice point. In the presence of nucleating substances the freezing point of water is the same as the melting point, but in the absence of nucleators water can supercool to −42 °C (−43.6 °F, 231 K) before freezing.

en.wikipedia.org...

Obviously the pressure is different, but it stands to reason that there is some chance that water could remain on the surface for a period of time before freezing. Just thought I'd throw it out there for anyone who was curious about that aspect of this topic.

It’s a smoke screen how many times have you heard this all before.

3-2003 Water flows on Mars!
www.abovetopsecret.com...

5-2003 Water Fight
www.abovetopsecret.com...

7-2003 WATER DETECTED ON MARS - LIFE PROBABLE?
www.abovetopsecret.com...

1-2004 Mars rover gets first hints of water
www.abovetopsecret.com...

And that’s just a few, there are many more [including a real in depth analysis on whether water can exist on the surface of mars]. Im sorry but im hearing to many "IF'S" in the news reports. Water on mars has been suggested many times by many provocative photos.

And don’t forget those wise words about sorting the problems of our own planet before we venture out into space. Yeah right!!!

Yeah, the Skull on Mars is crazy, but this water being found is also crazy, does anyone think if some form of life is found they will come out and talk about it?

[edit on 6-12-2006 by VoXiSo]