Today at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time, NASA announced they had, at long last, found strong evidence of recent liquid water flows on Mars.
Observations from the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) have revealed "recent activity" on the surface of the red planet; recent meaning in the past seven years. These changes include cratering from impacts (which is cool enough, and I’ll blog about those later), but also, yes, the flow of water.
Years ago, there were gullies seen on slopes on Mars, and they looked a lot like water had formed them. But it was hard to tell. Now, the evidence is far stronger. For example, check out this image:
This gully is in a crater in the Centauri Montes Region in the martian southern hemisphere. The critical piece of information here is that the gully did not exist light-toned features in the gully were not there in 1999, but are clear in 2005. It’s new!
In the higher resolution images (click it to see them) you can see the gully better. You can tell by eye it certainly looks like a liquid flow.
But how do we know they are water? The context is the key. Gullies indicate the flow of a liquid. Dust avalanches do occur on Mars, but not anywhere near these gullies. The morphology (shape) is important too. See how the gully breaks up as it flows down the slope? That also indicates a fluid flow. Finally, the color is an indicator, too. The light color is difficult to make on Mars. In trenches, most places where the surface dust is disturbed, and impact craters, the underlying layers are always almost always dark. This indicates a different process. Also, numerical calculations using models indicate that whatever caused these gullies flowed like water, not like dust or rocks.
As they say on the Malin Space Science Systems website:
Of course, water was not the only fluid considered by various colleagues; carbon dioxide can be fluid at some pressures and temperatures, and fluid carbon dioxide was also proposed as a candidate fluidizing agent. Even dry mass movement—landsliding—of unconsolidated granular material can exhibit some fluid-like behavior, and such mass movements were considered as an explanation for the gullies.
The presence of channels, primarily formed by erosion—but also displaying features representing along-channel deposition, such as levees and meanders—and terminal depositional aprons consisting of dozens to hundreds of individual flow lobes, contributed to the general acceptance of the hypothesis that gullies involved the action of liquid water.
These bright features in the gullies might be frost, but they’ve been around a while, so that’s pretty unlikely. They might be salts and other minerals deposited by the flow, or they might be smaller sediments carried along with the water.
How much water are we talking about? Maybe 5-10 swimming pools’ worth according to Ken Edgett, the scientist who has been working on these data. It would be a pretty quick flash flood, and, weirdly, in the low atmospheric pressure, the water would be boiling even at the low temperatures of Mars.
So what does this mean? Well, we’ve known of frozen water on Mars for decades, and we know there was activity in the past. These new observations indicate that things are happening on Mars now, within the past few years. And whatever it is that’s happening, it’s releasing water onto the surface, which in turn means that there is water just below the surface of Mars, at least in some places.
Sounds like a good place to build a colony, don’t you think?
It does to me. If there are big deposits of water, then that makes it a lot easier for potential colonists to survive on Mars, "living off the land". While the amount of water in any one gully is small, it indicates more water is nearby. This is terribly exciting.
Now, the skeptic in me must say it: this is not absolute conclusive proof of water on Mars. We need better images (maybe from the new probe orbiting Mars now), and spectra would be nice (to be able to see what chemicals are there). Even better would be to land a rover near there to get samples, though gullies down the sides of crater walls would make a perilous journey for any robot.
If these aren’t water gullies, we’ll all be disappointed, but that’s science. They’ll still be interesting features! But the evidence is very, very compelling, and I certainly hope that NASA follow this up quickly with more observations.
Recent flow of water on Mars from subsurface deposits. Wow.
Note added Wednesday night, 12/06: I made a couple of wording changes above due to some comments below. I checked, and the commenters were correct, so I made the edits. Thanks!
December 6th, 2006 at 11:48 am
With the liquid water news, and also the news of recent cratering, it’s a great time to be a planetary researcher, especially regarding Mars.
But I too will wait until more detail and research is done, before drawing conclusions.
(I know my friends who work in the field will appreciate that)
December 6th, 2006 at 11:49 am
Too bad they have not discovered something like this near the rovers. How exciting.
December 6th, 2006 at 11:54 am
And if it was liquid H2O then frozen (?), could there also be microbial Martians, too?
December 6th, 2006 at 12:00 pm
The BA says: “How much water are we talking about? Maybe 5-10 swimming pools’ worth”
Hmm, remind me again just what unit system that is. Are those calibrated swimming pools? Olympic size (metric)? Backyard type (English)?
What’s the total volume of water on Mars in SPW’s?
- Jack
December 6th, 2006 at 12:28 pm
“Sounds like a good place to build a colony, don’t you think?”
Sign me up!
What wonderful news! Festive season indeed, now.
December 6th, 2006 at 12:29 pm
“Sounds like a good place to build a colony, don’t you think?”
Mmm, not really. Same answer if the body/planet in question is the Moon.
Why?
Unless I’m missing something, colonizing an otherwise inhospitable planet doesn’t do much for me. I tell people that if they want to imagine life on Mars, pick a windowless room in any building and imagine spending years there. Because of the ill protection from meteorites and other projectiles, I’m not thinking that an above-ground colony is going to work. Plus, with a rather monochromatic lanscape to look forward to, I’m thinking we have deserts here already, and you can breathe the air freely.
I’m open to counter-claims as to why colonization of any body in our solar system is a god idea. As for me, I’d think it would be only as a stepping stone toward another livable planet. I’d like to see more in the way of Earth-ish planets anywhere near here before I get on board with local colonization.
On a side note: You do realize you’re throwing a bone to Hoagland at the end of your post, yeah? Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing he can’t point to and claim to be definitive proof of – in this case – life on Mars. If there’s running water, and we ostensibly can “live off the land” in such cases, why can’t Hoagland’s little green men?
I’ll hang up and take my answer(s) off the air.
December 6th, 2006 at 12:31 pm
I dunno, sounds like we may have exported global warming to Mars ;-D
Exciting news indeed though!
December 6th, 2006 at 12:36 pm
That may add some fizz to NASA!
December 6th, 2006 at 12:42 pm
10 swimming pools of water is approximately equal to one BALLPARK.
December 6th, 2006 at 12:42 pm
Can’t wait to see the results from further investigations. That’s very very very interesting thus far.
If it’s not water it’s still a great event.
December 6th, 2006 at 1:06 pm
Now this is the kind of news that makes waking up in morning to the news bulletin a worthy experience
December 6th, 2006 at 1:07 pm
I tell people that if they want to imagine life on Mars, pick a windowless room in any building and imagine spending years there.
If you work in an office and live in a large city that’s probably a pretty good escription of your life already. And humans have a long history of putting up with all kinds of horrible conditions in order to be colonists, living in a windowless room compares pretty favorably to some.
Plus, with a rather monochromatic lanscape to look forward to, I’m thinking we have deserts here already, and you can breathe the air freely.
Have you ever lived in the desert? It’s really very beautiful and the sunsets are amazingly colorful.
December 6th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
…start…the….reactor…….
December 6th, 2006 at 1:17 pm
Olympic-sized swimming pool is an accepted international measure of volume. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_strange_units_of_measurement#Cubic_Volume:_Olympic-sized_swimming_pool
December 6th, 2006 at 1:19 pm
“If you work in an office and live in a large city that’s probably a pretty good escription of your life already. And humans have a long history of putting up with all kinds of horrible conditions in order to be colonists, living in a windowless room compares pretty favorably to some.”
But the difference is, one can choose to go outdoors freely. We also have the ways and means to transport people around the world in a relatively short time. Colonization, while possible of course, seems awfully expensive to me with little or no ROI. Insert Iraq War snark here.
December 6th, 2006 at 1:32 pm
next update on Nasa TV at 3 central time
December 6th, 2006 at 1:39 pm
A friend of mine found this site and I thought of you right away. Have you heard of this guy?
Joseph P. Skipper
http://www.marsanomalyresearch.com/evidence-reports/2006/102/mars-humanoid-skull.htm
December 6th, 2006 at 1:48 pm
Interesting.
December 6th, 2006 at 1:50 pm
If you’re looking for people who might want to colonize, here (http://new.marsstuff.com/) might be a good place to start. I think you’ll find there are enough volunteers for several years of colonization, just in members there. The problem is money, not manpower.
December 6th, 2006 at 1:52 pm
[...] The best coverage, as ever, comes from Bad Astronomy. [...]
December 6th, 2006 at 2:04 pm
Golly, to hear all the excitement you’d think they’d found gushing geysers, raging rapids, and limpid pools instead of a modest discoloration that MAY represent a trickle of liquid (and just as easily may represent a nonliquid event). It’s interesting, to be sure, but I don’t think anybody ought to be packing their bags any time soon. Our little robotic friends are doing quite nicely in the exploration dept anyway, and have far fewer lifestyle demands than humans. I totally LOVE Bad Astronomy, but let’s not get carried away.
December 6th, 2006 at 2:20 pm
I want one of those cool NASA mugs they have on the broadcast.
Neat.
(oh yeah, the water on Mars thing was pretty cool, too.)
December 6th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
Matt for the Wet Blanket of the Commentary award!
December 6th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
I concur, Will.
and my bags are already packed….
December 6th, 2006 at 2:41 pm
Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.
December 6th, 2006 at 2:49 pm
I humbly accept this award on behalf of skeptical fuddy-duddies, sourpusses, and spoilsports everywhere. It’s just that there’s so much cool stuff happening out there to get all excited about, I just can’t get too enthusiastic about rocketing off to look for (possible) slushy mudflows on a planet that (as was observed by others here) has proven itself — despite the awesome technical achievement of the photography — to be pretty homogenous and drab (not to mention downright inhospitable). Pack your bags, have a wonderful time, and don’t forget to write! (And again, thanks for the award — it’s really quite attractive)
December 6th, 2006 at 2:50 pm
Sounds great!
December 6th, 2006 at 2:54 pm
I went home for lunch and made the announcement to my family. When I left my oldest son was glued to the BA Blog (bestest blog around!).
Lou FCD
I agree…
I want one of those cool NASA cups too!
Anyone know where we can get ‘em?
Again…WOOHOO! Water on Mars!
December 6th, 2006 at 3:00 pm
BA,
Just a thought that you might want to tweak this sentence..
“In trenches, most places where the surface dust is disturbed, and impact craters, the underlying layers are always dark.”
to something like….
underlying layers are USUALLY dark.
In the MSS images of recent craters announced with the water announcement was this one:
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2006/12/06/craters/site5/index.html
Which is entitled ” Fresh Crater in Arabia Terra With Light-Toned Ejecta”
Now they go on to explain that this crater was deep, and it can be inferred that the trenches were not as deep.. etc. etc. but this does show that they are not always dark.
I normally am not the kind of person who cares about such minutia when the point was clear,but given the magnitude of this announcement you probably will get quite a few first timers to the site..
My $.02
December 6th, 2006 at 3:22 pm
Currently, the most hospitable environment in the Solar System but not on Earth is somewhere between 10 and 20 km above the surface of Venus.
At that altitude, barometric pressure is similar to Earth’s, the temperate is warm enough to support liquid water but not too hot for humans, and there is plenty of atmospheric shielding above to block solar radiation..
That would make it a virtual Garden of Eden (the blimp edition) compared to the living conditions on the surface of Mars.
December 6th, 2006 at 3:57 pm
one word, WOW!
December 6th, 2006 at 3:59 pm
It’s too bad we can’t export a few decades worth of CO2 emissions to Mars, and start getting things warmed up there for potential human visitors. Two birds, one stone.
December 6th, 2006 at 4:21 pm
[...] Devido ao adiantado da hora, e porque tudo ainda está um pouco confuso, vou apenas deixar aqui o post de Phill Plaitt no Bad Astronomy, que penso que analisa bem a situação. Apenas uma nota, disseram-me que o Jornal da Noite da SIC abriu com a notÃcia de que havia água em Marte. O que existe são algumas imagens que demonstram a existência de estruturas que podem demonstrar a recente actividade de água lÃquida em Marte…é que são coisas um bocado diferentes…por enquanto… [...]
December 6th, 2006 at 7:21 pm
I think I see a face in that water mark.
December 6th, 2006 at 7:34 pm
[...] God, I’m such a nerd over this kinda stuff. Flit over to the Bad Astronomer’s place for some good info on the situation (including actual pictures). [...]
December 6th, 2006 at 7:48 pm
I also have a nit about the BA’s wording. Just below the side-by-side picture the BA
says …
‘The critical piece of information here is that the gully did not exist in 1999, but is clear in 2005. It’s new!’
It’s not made clear on the MGS Centauri Montes page, but it is on the Terra Sirenum page, that these are not new gullies. They are new deposits in pre-existing gullies.
December 6th, 2006 at 7:51 pm
“Currently, the most hospitable environment in the Solar System but not on Earth is somewhere between 10 and 20 km above the surface of Venus.”
Not sure that moving *closer* to the Sun is the best in-system colonization plan. Sure, we’re X years (where X = infinity, for practical intents and purposes relative to 2006) away from the Sun going all Red Giant on us, but.
December 6th, 2006 at 9:01 pm
Wow, super good news!!! Clap, clap.
December 6th, 2006 at 9:01 pm
Matt wrote: “I just can’t get too enthusiastic about rocketing off to look for (possible) slushy mudflows…”
Don’t forget, we (life) probably all came from a slushy mudflow long long ago. This discovery is actually a very exciting possibility.
December 6th, 2006 at 9:49 pm
wootles
December 6th, 2006 at 10:45 pm
Mike and JerWah, thanks! I made the changes. I appear to have misread the pages in question, unhappily. I was trying to type and listen at the same time for much of the press conference, which is not what I usually do– but I wanted this to get out quickly. Hopefully those are the only errors in the post!
December 6th, 2006 at 11:23 pm
Chip, I agree with you — slushy mudflows are interesting. Such habitats here on Earth (spring seeps by any other name) often yield rare and endemic invertebrate taxa, especially when the seeps are located in otherwise arid areas like the desert Southwest.
The thing I’ve been thinking about all day is that if there really are subsurface water deposits on Mars and we know where they occasionally flow to the surface, we would have a very interesting place to either park a rover to sample the water and ejected material or we would know a good place to start digging.
Here on Earth, subterranean waters serve as home for a variety of life forms from blind cave fish to worms to crustaceans to predaceous diving beetles — just to name a few. There are a number of aquatic bugs (especially some stoneflies) which spend most of their nymphal life not in the streams, but in the subsurface ground water which may extend out laterally from a stream bed 50m or more (the hyporheic zone). These nymphs may rarely be collected, even though the emergent adults can be found in abundance in the riparian vegetation. Just goes to show that creatures living in interstitial spaces can sometimes — ahem — fall between the cracks.
If there is subsurface water on Mars, there’s no guarantee we’d find anything living there…but it sure would be fun to look!
December 7th, 2006 at 9:02 am
[...] Oh yeah, and NASA also made a tini-tiny little announcement yesterday. Liquid water on Mars. Yes, you read that right. They’ve found relatively convincing evidence that liquid water has flowed across the surface of Mars in at least the last 7 years. This is big, big stuff. All the work we’ve been doing in regards to Mars over the last decade or so has basically been about trying to find water, or evidence of past water on Mars. This ups the chances of finding some type of life on the planet considerably. [...]
December 7th, 2006 at 9:08 am
Does anyone find it odd that they just lost contact with Global Surveyor right around the same time of this finding? Yes it was an old ship, but still, can’t help but wonder…
Have they mentioned if they are going to focus Odyssey on the site? I think I just read an article about the EU’s space craft about to study the area as well… And don’t those two crafts have spectometers and other capabilities which may tell us if there is any water near the sites, and also the composition of the new deposits?
December 7th, 2006 at 9:31 am
“Does anyone find it odd that they just lost contact with Global Surveyor right around the same time of this finding? Yes it was an old ship, but still, can’t help but wonder…”
What I would find odd would be releasing the photos and then disabling a spacecraft in order to hide something in those same photos. Maybe they found a Masonic temple up there…
December 7th, 2006 at 9:54 am
And news just in
Yorkshire Water has now announced a hosepipe ban
December 7th, 2006 at 10:47 am
Steve says at 12:42 p m :-
“10 swimming pools of water is approximately equal to one BALLPARK.”
Well I want to know how one calibrates a “Ballpark”? Or is “near enough, good enough”?
But hey, that is potentially great news if it is water, even better if there are soaks that occassionally let go, and flow horizontally to the surface, and suddenly have now more solid rock beneath. If in the distant past when that crater was instantly formed, any water in the rocky substrate, would have been instantly converted to vapour, some of it raining down and collecting in the crater bottom. Now that would have been a cool pool, for a while until it evaporated, I presume to space, and/or rained and collected in the previously mentioned rocks, flowing out, as we seem to have evidence in the images.
Ivan.
December 7th, 2006 at 10:55 am
Dang it, I forgot to proof the above. Lose the ‘w’ from ‘now’ in the part to read, “and suddenly have NO solid rock beneath.”, ie, flow down the slope of the crater wall.
Sorry ’bout that chief.
Ivan.
December 7th, 2006 at 11:01 am
SPWs, Ballparks….yes, we have a slight definition of units problem here.
Although isn’t 1 Earth SPW approximately equal to 2.6 Mars SPW? I can’t seem to find my conversion chart. Perhaps it’s 1 SPW US = 1.15 SPW Canadian.
December 7th, 2006 at 12:50 pm
I love it. Hoagland was on Coast to Coast last-night claiming he should have been up there on the panel during the presentation. Noory even congratulated him!!! What an idiot.
December 7th, 2006 at 1:36 pm
[...] See articles on the Planetary Society’s blog, Phil Plait’s blog, and the Mars Global Surveyor site. [...]
December 7th, 2006 at 3:14 pm
Do you suppose there are caves on Mars? I’d like to go spelunking.
December 7th, 2006 at 7:31 pm
If there IS liquid water on Mars, doesn’t that raise the chances of some kind of life existing on the planet? If that’s the case, isn’t sending human beings there a really, REALLY bad idea, scientifically speaking? We didn’t bother sterilizing all of our probes, which is quite stupid, but humans would create far more opportunities for contamination than any probe.
What if we found life, and then it was outcompeted by a species of Earth bacteria? (Not impossible, after all.) Even worse, what if Earth bacteria were released and flourished, and we could never tell if they had displaced native strains or not?
Sorry, but I still think the best bet for space exploration is advanced robotic probes.
December 8th, 2006 at 4:08 am
There has been compelling evidence of liquid water on Mars for many years now – flowing down crater walls and hills…some even pooling, from the raw MALIN/NASA images. They have also shown some sort of “trees” as well. Simliar to our own banyan trees in the deserts of Earth. Sir Arthur C. Clarke has even commented on them.
How aggravating it is to encounter individuals who still maintain a hard grasp on old and antiquainted teachings about Mars…being a cold, dry and dead world. News like this shakes them up and makes them re-evaluate. Not a comfortable place to be. I guess until they can take a cool refreshing Martian drink, they will always be skeptical. Too bad.
I’m glad that NASA has finally announced the news of flowing water on Mars, and it’s just a matter of time – of evidence from biological fingerprints. There is already an increase in methane in the atmosphere…could it be Martian critters?
Just a matter of time.
Respectfully,
Chicago Astronomer Joe
Administrator
http://www.chicagoastronomer.com
December 8th, 2006 at 6:07 am
I was also listening to Coast to Coast AM, for purposes of amusement only, when Hoagland announced that the discovery was really his. He really crows about it on his website.
Dave Mitsky
December 8th, 2006 at 10:06 am
It wasn’t entirely clear from that site as to whether these observations rule out fluid carbon dioxide – as far as I can tell they are saying these aren’t just landslides but a fluid is involved, which could either be water or carbon dioxide, either of which could presumably be in an underground reservoir.
December 8th, 2006 at 10:23 am
That doesn’t even look a skull.
It’s obviously the plush raccoon they sent along to prevent the rover from feeling lonely during the cold, dark Martian night.
December 8th, 2006 at 1:12 pm
Is it possible that this is not a water flow but something like a slide that has exposed lighter/unweathered rock below it?
December 8th, 2006 at 1:52 pm
I’ve heard somewhere that personalities improve with age. I wonder what Richard Hoagland was like in Junior High.
December 8th, 2006 at 3:16 pm
How do they know it wasn’t CO2?
http://unisci.com/stories/20012/0402013.htm
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/space/08/04/white.mars/
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-water-science-00k2.html
December 8th, 2006 at 3:18 pm
John Stone, if you read the press releases in full, you will discover that the science teams have considered that possibility. They do not think it is a dirt slide that exposed underlying terrain because they have features like that already, and the exposed underlying dirt is typically dark. The lightness does not match. Also, the shape of the mark is very conformative to a liquid flow and not a dirt slide.
The team also does leave their conclusion open to the possibility of other interpretations. They spell out their reasoning and their tenative conclusion.
Chicago Astronomer Joe, the prior evidence of liquid water flow was not datable. It was geolocially young, but that means within millions of years. This evidence is indicative of changes within the last 7 years. That is news.
The standing water and banyan tree speculations you mention are highly speculative and on very weak evidence, by means of stretched interpretations of difficult to interpret pictures.
December 8th, 2006 at 9:16 pm
I say if the interpretation is good enough for Clarke, than it’s good enough for me.
“The image is so striking that there is no need to say anything about it — it’s obviously vegetation to any unbiased eye.” – Arthur C. Clarke
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviationspace/dab6d4d03cb84010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html
Just a short time ago, it was folly even to consider liquid water anywhere besides Earth.
Raw data flowing water images from MSSS:
http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/m07_m12/images/M12/M1201516.html
http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/m07_m12/images/M08/M0807023.html
Banyan trees:
http://www.marsunearthed.com/SelectedImages/ACClarkeTrees/ACClarkeTrees.htm
Of course, more investigations are neccessary, but looks good to me.
All in good time.
December 8th, 2006 at 9:50 pm
Chaicago Joe, those “banyan” trees were debunked a few months ago: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2006/08/16/2090.aspx
December 9th, 2006 at 5:53 am
BA Phil,
Interesting article, and a good argument against the Banyans. Might be right, but I don’t feel the imagery is debunked…not yet anyway.
But an observation -
None of the embedded links in the MSNBC article specifically denote or display the banyan tree images, which I find quite odd – considering the story is about them. But instead referring to “spidering”, defrosting and geyser/polar jets images as examples of natural geological activity – which no doubt do occur on Mars.
One can clearly see the wind blown ejecta from the polar jet images showing such phenomenon in the MSNBC atricle, but not in the banyan images. There are no polar jets displayed in the banyan tree MSSS link images like the story refers to.
But let’s wait for the highly detailed images from the MRO’s 21″ camera and see what they really are.
Thanks for the link and I’ll post it on my forum. Good fodder for conversation debate.
Chicago Astronomer Joe
December 9th, 2006 at 9:18 pm
AC Clarke also thought Venus Pancake Volcanoes “certainly looked organic”, according to Prof James Head in the following science lecture on planetary evolution.
http://www.uwtv.org/programs/displayevent.aspx?rID=2137&fID=1473
PS, it’s a great talk if you have 60 minutes. I’ve listened to it more than once. He talks very fast and there’s a ton packed into the hour.
December 10th, 2006 at 6:56 am
This is brilliant news, but it may have eclipsed a possibly even greater discovery… Alien transmissions?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL9uJE3eFjg
December 11th, 2006 at 2:38 pm
404 error?
December 11th, 2006 at 2:39 pm
Chicago Astronomer Joe said:
> I say if the interpretation is good enough for Clarke, than it’s good enough for me.
Ah, the argument from authority. I don’t recall that being the scientific method.
> Just a short time ago, it was folly even to consider liquid water anywhere besides Earth.
We’ve learned a lot in a little amount of time.
December 11th, 2006 at 2:40 pm
> Raw data flowing water images from MSSS:
Those images are discussed in the new press releases. They’ve been determined with reasonable certainty to not be water, but rather a dry slide process, loose dirt slides similar to avalanches. The dark marks appear to be underlying rock, or perhaps shadow from exposed rock edges by the removal of loose dust. They are in a different geological zone from the new images, and look very different.
>Banyan trees:
I have no idea what Banyan trees are or what they look like from above, so I can’t comment on whether these features resemble banyan trees or not. They do give the appearance of some type of vegetation, but oddly the edges of the region do not remain distinct but blend into the surrounding terrain in the “spiderweb” pattern. It suggests to me there are some features we do not fully understand, but the I’m not convinced it’s “vegetation”. Phil’s linked article about the dark triangular spouts of CO2 and dirt is very interesting, and that article discusses the method for forming the spiderweb patterns. That is congruent with what we know about Martian conditions.
> Of course, more investigations are neccessary, but looks good to me.
I certainly agree more investigations are necessary and we may not know the full story yet.
December 11th, 2006 at 2:40 pm
> None of the embedded links in the MSNBC article specifically denote or display the banyan tree images, which I find quite odd – considering the story is about them. But instead referring to “spideringâ€, defrosting and geyser/polar jets images as examples of natural geological activity – which no doubt do occur on Mars.
Oddly enough, the article you link citing Arthur C. Clarke declaring them Banyan trees fails to display the banyan tree images either, despite his declaration:
If you look a little closer, Christensen is actually addressing the other features of the black spikes and spiderwebbing. He connects the “banyan trees” in more as a follow on, because of the similarity to the spiderwebbing. Phil, the tone of the article as explaining the banyan trees appears to be coming more from Alan Boyle than from Christensen. Christensen sees similarity and is linking them, but he is primarily addressing the other image features. Perhaps this is Joe’s point?
December 11th, 2006 at 2:42 pm
Code error in last post:
—–
Oddly enough, the article you link citing Arthur C. Clarke declaring them Banyan trees fails to display the banyan tree images either, despite his declaration:
Funny that something so critical to his argument was omitted, no? Sorry, that sword cuts both ways.
I will also point out from Phil’s linked article this quote:
If you look a little closer, Christensen is actually addressing the other features of the black spikes and spiderwebbing. He connects the “banyan trees” in more as a follow on, because of the similarity to the spiderwebbing. Phil, the tone of the article as explaining the banyan trees appears to be coming more from Alan Boyle than from Christensen. Christensen sees similarity and is linking them, but he is primarily addressing the other image features. Perhaps this is Joe’s point?
December 11th, 2006 at 4:37 pm
wow water sounds very very interesting! i am doing this fro a report for my science extra credit because it is interesting what a great event!!
December 12th, 2006 at 11:12 pm
Fellow Skeptics and believers,
It’s all great and interesting content to explore, pro & con – and I for sure anticipate the upcoming images from the MRO. If it can image the rover along with the jettisoned heat shield, undeniable evidence should be no problem.
It’s all speculation at this point, but I’ll be bold, beat the rush now and jump on the Martian vegetable and water wagons. Room for plenty.
I bet that Martian water is refreshenly cool, and the shade pleasant from the harsh UV rays!
Respectfully,
Chicago Astronomer Joe
Administrator
http://www.chicagoastronomer.com
Telescope/Observatory Operator
Adler Planetarium & Museum
December 14th, 2006 at 7:04 pm
[...] I’m not even gonna summarize! Just go see the BA at BadAstronomy! [...]
February 19th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
Wow!! is there actually liquard water in mars??
March 4th, 2007 at 12:13 am
Recent Liquid Water on the Surface of Mars?…
MGS image (full-size) of one of the new deposits. Credit: NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems
In a previous post, I discussed the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS). It has returned vast amounts of data over the several years it has been orbiting Mars, but …
August 13th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
I`ve just watched a documentary concerning the growth of bacteria contained in a drop of water and extracted from a salt crystal that was over two and half million years old,now that water is known to exist in relatively large quantities on mars i`m off to the bookies to put a tenner
on “little green microbes” hope i can still get good odds!
September 8th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
Mars does have water, and trees near the poles where the climate is good and the arid desert meets the ice caps.
I’m also pretty sure there are more than two rovers on mars. Why build and send 2 when you have the budget to send 10 or more.
The other ‘unknown’ rovers are visiting the real sites of interest, like the banyan trees and the polar regions.
Seems pretty dumb to send the two known rovers to the most devoid areas of interest to make out as if nothing is there!
February 29th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – It made a big splash when scientists announced in 2006 that images from a NASA spacecraft indicated water apparently had flowed on the surface of Mars in the past decade but new research casts doubt on that finding.
Link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080229/sc_nm/mars_water_dc