Movie of water flowing on Mars!

I thought Mars used to be like earth but it lost it's magnetic field? So it should be no suprise to find water on Mars?!

Originally posted by kdog1982
If there was life there,the biggest obstacle would be the uv radiation,since Mars has no protection from this.

Maybe under the rocks where it would be protected.

Don't forget about bacteria resistant to radiation, like Deinococcus radiodurans and the recent discovery of bacteria resistant to UV rays, found in the Earth's Stratosphere. But, you're right, I imagine most of the life, if present, would be just under the surface.

www.sciencedaily.com...

Not to change the subject but they found water on Mercury as well. No evidence of water flows but water ice most certainly.

2nd.

Originally posted by 4hero
I thought Mars used to be like earth but it lost it's magnetic field? So it should be no suprise to find water on Mars?!

I agree. The atmosphere may have been reduced, but there is still water on Mars. It's been detected at the poles and just under the surface in permafrost by probes like the Phoenix Lander:



At this location on Mars, at the Horowitz Crater, the summertime temperature can get up to 80F, melting some of the water. This results in the flows seen in the opening post.

en.wikipedia.org...

Nice post and picture...
But..Wow, 80F ?..that is a nice temp on Earth!!
I thought we were led to believe the temp is -50F or something...once again, little snippets of info, drip fed to the public.
I really wonder if the reason we havent sent a manned mission to Mars, is that they are frightened that some mysterious microbe/bacteria, will be brought back to Earth and devastate this planet.

Its 70 years since rocket technology,... it is old hat, and Im quite sure that the "Brains" have developed craft that can make this journey quickly. Rocket tech is reasonably practical for lifting objects into space cheaply.
The shuttle missions and space station are minor diversions, to keep people employed at NASA etc etc.
Lockheed, EG&G, and a myriad of many other black fund recipients have been making the real hi tech.
As they say...50 years ahead of what we "think" we know.

No doubt Mars probably has some life, as do other Orbs in our SS.
BUT I would think that fear of bringing the "Wrong" thing accidentally back to Earth, has been the major holdup.
We've seen it on Earth....Isolated cultures destroyed by, regular "bugs" from other cultures.
Imagine what an "Alien" Martian bug, could do to Earth Life.
Just thinking out loud...again.

reply to post by gort51


The temperatures on mars vary. The location shown is at the equator during the summer, and NASA says it got to 80F.

Generally speaking:

The temperatures on the two Viking landers, measured at 1.5 meters above the surface, range from + 1° F, ( -17.2° C) to -178° F (-107° C). However, the temperature of the surface at the winter polar caps drop to -225° F, (-143° C) while the warmest soil occasionally reaches +81° F (27° C) as estimated from Viking Orbiter Infrared Thermal Mapper.

www.astronomycafe.net...

Prediction: they will find life on Mars this year.

2nd.

reply to post by BIGPoJo

Curiosity will be landing on August 6th so you could be right.
But it's not likely since it isn't really specifically designed to look for life.
www.nasa.gov...

reply to post by Phage


OK, I will up the ante. They will find life that is too obvious to ignore or dismiss by theory.

Keep in mind, I am not claiming to be psychic, just having some fun.

Originally posted by Nicolas Flamel
Does it look like water flowing to you?

No.

Water flowing downhill would become thinner and thinner until it would end in a very thin flow, but those on the photos used in the animation look like they get wider and wider.

On other places on Mars there are things that really look like gullies made by some liquid (getting thinner and thinner), but this is not one of those cases.

I don't have any theory to explain it.

Couldn't this just be air currents across the surface? I know that the soil of mars has been described as clumpy .. so why couldn't that be what we're seeing rather than water?

Just offering an alternate theory

reply to post by ArMaP


I see what you mean. I found something in a Journal of Hydrology that describes the movement of solutes through dry soils where the surface layer has a different permeability than the sub-surface layers. As the solutes move through this kind of soil it seems to form a similar pattern, i.e. a solute plume:

Movement of inert solute particles through a sandy soil with a water-repellent top layer and a wettable subsoil. Note the retardation of solute in low-flow pockets in the wavy distribution zone and the divergence of the solute plume in the wettable subsoil. The soil is sandy, with a water-repellent top layer of 0.20 m and a wettable subsoil of 0.3 m with free drainage at the bottom.

www.sciencedirect.com...

I could be way off on this one and I'm sure I'd be corrected in the blink of an eye but WHAT IF:
What we are seeing through the different images is simply the flow of "sand" after or during a wind storm?

I'm at work right now and can't photoshop the areas where to me looks clear that the sand is trying to "escape" from between two rocks giving the impression of a high concentration of water as it passess through these mediums?

Now my theory could go south in a hurry if winds in Mars only comes from the same direction all the time which I'm sure they don't but again this was just a theory!

Originally posted by oghamxx
Looks like changing shadows to me

No shadows just the Mongolian death worm!

All bs aside cool find I see no reason why there couldn't be a type of Martian extremeophile. Hell on mars it might be called a normal life form albeit microbial. Humans have to get off the "if it can't live on earth than it can't exist kick" we haven't even scratched the surface on what's out there. Once again cool find. S&f

reply to post by TheEnlightenedOne


The idea that this is caused by only dry processes was discussed by the researchers. They came to the conclusion that water was involved because:

The tracks appeared annually during the warmer Martian months on equator-facing slopes, extended downhill and then faded as temperatures dropped once again.

Other streaks can be explained without water being involved:

Streaky slopes closer to the equator, for instance, do not seem to display the seasonality that would be expected of melting and could simply be tracks from boulders rolling downhill. "In all these cases, you can explain the observations without liquid water,"

The seasons during which these streaks appear and disappear seems to be key. Because these streaks grow in the summer, when it's warm, and shrink in the winter when it's colder, is leading them to believe water is involved.

www.scientificamerican.com...

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by BIGPoJo

 

Curiosity will be landing on August 6th so you could be right.
But it's not likely since it isn't really specifically designed to look for life.
www.nasa.gov...

It just blows my mind that they don't add life detecting instruments to the landers/probes and even orbiters. I understand the added cost and weight but wouldn't it be cheaper and more efficient to just add it to the ones we have sent. Or are they trying to wait so they don't scare the masses?

Originally posted by ArMaP

Originally posted by Nicolas Flamel
Does it look like water flowing to you?

No.

Water flowing downhill would become thinner and thinner until it would end in a very thin flow, but those on the photos used in the animation look like they get wider and wider.

On other places on Mars there are things that really look like gullies made by some liquid (getting thinner and thinner), but this is not one of those cases.

I don't have any theory to explain it.

.

Ever heard of osmosis?

2nd

reply to post by swampcricket

What sort of life? The only kind of life we know how to look for is "life as we know it".
That was done and the results were ambiguous at best.

reply to post by Phage


I get what you are saying. But scientists can get creative. I'm no scientist but I am an electrical engineer and I work a lot with magnetism and it just blows my mind the capabilities that can me done with magnetism. We didn't know it at first but the more we "discover" the more things change if that makes sense. electricity has been around since the beginning whenever that was but look at what we can do with it now. Our body produces it. It loves silicon. So is it possible that there are silicon based life forms? If we never think outside the box we will never know.

Originally posted by Nicolas Flamel
reply to post by TheEnlightenedOne

Thanks for that explanation!