Could this be water on Mars

I came across this last night while looking at new pictures from Mars. This is from the University of Arizona HiRise website. Could not load the image because it was too big, but man, this sure looks like water to me. Could be false color or something else, i'm not sure. Anyway, if you go to this sight, on the right hand side, click on: IRB color (map projected). When you scroll down this image just before the bottom on the left is a crater with ice on the right rim. Inside the crater, it seems to be fluid with some ice in it. Could be an optical illusion, but at first glance it looks like a pond or small lake. hirise.lpl.arizona.edu...

No. There is no liquid water on the surface of Mars since the atmospheric pressure is to low. I wish I had a pound for every "Water on Mars" or "Alien ruins on Mars" thread, I'd be one rich chap...

Well what temperature does it need to be on mars for liquid water to exist?

I know that in a vacuum water freezes and evaporates at the same time. However mars is not a vacuum.

Originally posted by tomcat ha
Well what temperature does it need to be on mars for liquid water to exist?

It's not just a matter of temperature, the pressure regulates how long the water will remain in liquid form PV=nRT and all that. I accept that frozen water probably exists at the poles, but lakes of liquid water cannot exist on Mars because the atmospheric pressure is very very small!

Originally posted by tomcat ha
I know that in a vacuum water freezes and evaporates at the same time. However mars is not a vacuum.

I'm afraid that's incorrect, the surface of Mars is very close to a laboratory vacuum.

[edit on 30-4-2008 by timelike]

Then how can you have dust storms in a vacuum ? I must be missing something

I recall reading several mainstream media stories that NASA and scientists have found proof that Mars had water much more recently that previously thought... something like a few million years ago versus a few billions years... and that it is possible that water still seeps to the surface in some places, but that there is no flowing water or pools of water on the planet... wish I could remember where I read this, but it was a few years ago

there's a recent article on a "dry hot springs" discovery which can be found Here

reply to post by dcmb1490


It's a false colour (as all images from HiRISE), the IRB images are made with the infrared, red and blue channels instead of the red, green and blue because the camera does not have two separate filters for green and blue, it has only a green+blue filter.

The "ice" you see on the crater rim is not ice, it's a type of rock very common on Mars (in the humble opinion of someone that has downloaded 1134 HiRISE images, me ).

This is that crater (if I am not mistaken) viewed at 50% zoom with IAS viewer (if you are interested in HiRISE images I strongly suggest you donwload it, it's the best way of seeing those huge images).


This is a link to the 100% zoom image of that crater (that I don't know if its really a crater).

Edit to add the same image as above but in its RGB version, with 50% zoom.


And a link to the 100% zoom image.

I also thought it could be interesting to see the greyscale image because it shows a bigger area (the colour sensors only show the central part of the image).

This is an image from that area at 25% zoom to show why I don't think that is a crater.


[edit on 1/5/2008 by ArMaP]

My bad, I didnt have that type of magnification available at the time. Your pictures were great and proved that technology is better than the human eye. Next time I will do a lot more careful inspection and interpertation before something is posted. I stand corrected and my hat off to you sir.