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Space Science

Evidence Found of Lake, Catastrophic Flood on Mars 367

Posted by timothy from the giant-waterfight dept.
angkor points to this article on spaceflightnow.com, excerpting: "Scientists 'have discovered a large former lake in the highlands of Mars that would cover an area the size of Texas and New Mexico combined.'"
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Evidence Found of Lake, Catastrophic Flood on Mars More

Evidence Found of Lake, Catastrophic Flood on Mars

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  • the bible was right... (Score:4, Funny)

    by RogueProtoKol ( 577894 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @04:49AM (#3755795) Homepage
    ... except the massive flood which lasted 40 days and 40 nights was on mars not earth! now i wonder what happened to noah and all the animals?
    • now i wonder what happened to noah and all the animals?

      They're on the spaceship with Elvis. Running the US shadow government from orbit. Advising Bush to advance troops to within 400 cubits of Baghdad.

      That kind of thing.

    • That's easy (Score:5, Funny)

      by Ethelred Unraed ( 32954 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @06:13AM (#3755971) Journal

      ... except the massive flood which lasted 40 days and 40 nights was on mars not earth! now i wonder what happened to noah and all the animals?

      That's easy. Noah's Ark was a spaceship. Duh!

      Which reminds me of a German cartoon (http://www.nichtlustig.de/ [nichtlustig.de]) recently: one sees the Ark in the background, and in the foreground is a small raft with a prophet-like guy and two unicorns. The caption reads "Noah's rival Ishmael was rather less successful", and one of the unicorns says to Ishmael, "By the way, we're gay."

      Cheers,

      Ethelred [grantham.de]

    • Re:the bible was right... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Why are so many people inclined to believe that Mars had a catastrophic flood but they don't believe the Earth had a similar event take place 5000 years ago?

  • fire water burn (Score:5, Funny)

    by ComaVN ( 325750 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @04:50AM (#3755797)
    Of course, it would be more useful to cover arizona and colorado with a lake at the moment.
    • Why do americans feel the need to express everything in space, in how it relates to the size of texas?

      Bruce willis: How big is that thing?
      Some guy: It's as big as texas

      Nasa nerd 1: I've found a lake on mars!
      Nasa nerd 2: Really? where?
      Nasa nerd 3: Up there on your left... It's about 1.2 texas'.

      Picard: Number one, how fast are we currently travelling?
      Riker: Approximately 200 million texas' per hour sir

  • Great!! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Pseud0 ( 412706 )
    I'm packing my swimsuit!

    uhh.. no.. wait.. "former"... *mumble*

  • Inland sea? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ObitMan ( 550793 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @05:03AM (#3755828) Journal
    with that amount of area wouldn't it be better referred to as an inland sea like the Great Lakes or the Black sea?
    • if *I* was landing a robotic lander, I would say "gee,here's where water used to be...Let's look for Fossils!"
      duh.
      if they can find where water was collecting, there is a batter chance to find life, and hence, even if the life is dead, find proof.what would all of those religous zealots say when we say, um, yes, we have definitive PROOF of extra terrestrial life?
      This give us an actual BULLSEYE to aim for to cause a massive religous upheaval.

      either way it would just be cool. can you imagine what those critters mighta looked like with the differences in planets? :)

      • Re:And plenty of code space for more. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Christianfreak ( 100697 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @09:53AM (#3756543) Homepage Journal
        I know I've asked the this question before: But why is it that everytime there's a story about life on other planets we have someone start talking about the "religious zealots" and how this is going to upset their faith? Like for some reason everyone who is religious will just pack their bags and go home and never give religion another thought.

        Well here's a thought... the vast majority of religious people (like the vast majority of the population) probably don't care if there is/was life on other planets. For those that do care the vast majority of them welcome the idea and want to know more about it (myself included).

        Yes there are some religious people who are short-sighted and have to put God in a box and declare that everything happened a certain way. For those of us who are not short-sighted its fairly easy to reconcile faith with science. We realize that God is much bigger than any science or logic. The Bible doesn't say that Evolution didn't happen, it just says that God had a hand in creating all that is. For all we know he used evolution to do it and put billions of life-forms all over the universe!

        Finally all this begs the question, Why do you care if some people believe that God created the world in a certain way? They have free speech, they don't seem to be here bothering you. If you believe their wrong fine but why bring them up here where has nothing to do with the topic at hand?

        Is it because you are equally short-sighted and believe that all religious people in the world believe a certain way because of the acts of a vocal few?

        • I'd say the Bible strongly implies evolution did not happen. HOWEVER, the Bible most certainly does not say life does not exist on other planets.

          C.S. Lewis once said atheists wanted to have it both ways with extraterrestrial life. If life exists on other planets, that proves we're not unique and not special, and so there's no God. On the other hand, if life doesn't exist on other planets, that proves we're an accident, and therefore there's no God. (Gross simplification of what he said, from memory.)

          To my atheist/agnostic friends: the Bible makes no comments about whether there is life elsewhere or not. Anybody who tells you otherwise is taking something out of context. If you don't believe me, ask them for the reference and go read it for yourself [goreadthebible.com].

          Some will say the sacrifice of Jesus makes no sense if there is life on other planets, because how could those races be saved? There are two possibilities. Perhaps such races never sinned, as we did, and thus don't need salvation. (C.S. Lewis treated this possibility in his Space Trilogy.) Or, perhaps the Son of God was born on multiple worlds to save multiple lost races. The Bible DOES NOT SAY.

          So, evidence of life on other worlds should not faze a Bible-believer.

        • The problem is that "religious zealots" are .... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by DG ( 989 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @11:30AM (#3757052) Homepage Journal
          ...so damned dangerous.

          If you (and possibly your community) are the type that have a quiet, personal faith that sustains you during the difficult parts of your life....

          ...well, even though I (and many others) may find the first principles behind it (that there is an invisible, omnipotent and omniscient being who created us all and who has rules for us that we must all abide by or be consined to the flames) absurd, there's no law against the absurd, and you're not hurting anyone. There's no reason for anyone to piss in your cornflakes.

          But you unfortunately - on the surface - share the same faith with a bunch of people who twist religeous writings to serve their own ends, and who simultaniously use these twisted interpretations to absolve them of any responsibility for their actions.

          Somebody with the absolute conviction that an otherwise unconsciencable act is sanctioned by their God is a VERY dangerous person, the same way that a psychopath or sociopath is dangerous. The normal rules of conduct no longer apply.

          So you get people who feel very strongly that "abortion is murder", but believe that killing doctors who perform abortions is just fine (because it is sanctioned by God,and thus not "murder")

          And so on and so forth. There are so many examples that I don't think it's necessary to trot them all out. You don't have to search very hard to find examples of religiously-motivated abhorrant behaviour.

          And this behaviour is very much inter-faith. All the major world religions preach peace, tolerence, understanding, and a virtuous life, and evey one of them has bred fanatics who have killed, raped, burned, and opressed (from individuals to entire populations) in the name of their God.

          A common theme amongst these fanatics is an insistance on the absolute infallibility of their scriptures and the letter of these scriptures (or at least the part of it that they feel gives them leave to do whatever it is they want to do) Anything that can debunk or disprove these scriptures makes is more difficult to gain converts and continue spreading the disease. A world with no religious zealots would be a very fine place indeed.

          So it's not that anyone believes that "all religious people believe a certain thing because of the acts of a vocal few" but rather that "the acts of the vocal few are so damned dangerous that they have to be contained somehow".

          Note that you don't necessarily have to be burning witches or firebombing abortion clinics to be dangerous. If you seek the supression of the teaching of truth (because it contradicts your scriptures) you are dangerous. If you seek to deny people certain rights (because your scriptures claim such people are hated by your God) then you are dangerous. If you seek the supression of certain books or works of art because you feel they are counter to the wishes of your God, you are dangerous. Etc etc ad nausium.

          Probably the best illustration of what I'm taking about here comes from the fine folks at The Onion:

          http://www.theonion.com/onion3734/god_clarifies_ do nt_kill.html

          The fanatics are the ones speaking for you, like it or not. They tar you with the same brush.

          DG
          • A common theme amongst these fanatics is an insistance on the absolute infallibility of their scriptures

            I am not a fanatic, but I do believe this in a sense about the Bible. I believe that the Bible holds only truth, and nothing false. However, this belief has little relevance when you consider the following points:

            1) Humans are fallable. Therefore, even if the Bible is in fact infallable, our interpretation of it may be incorrect. Our interpretation must always be balanced with other forms of evidence and reasoning. Fanatics don't have these checks and balances and end up doing things like "murdering in the name of God".

            2) Text in and of itself is a very limited form of communication. This releates to interpreation by considering aspects of historical context and culture. Although our translators have done an excellent job in this area, we have to be very careful about how we read these texts.

            None of this means that it's impossible to learn truth from the Bible, it just means that I can admit that I may not fully understand a passage, or that I may be completely wrong about a passage. This is important because every fanatic I've talked to (even Linux fanatics!) "know that they're Right", and there's nothing you can say or no evidence that you can present to change their mind. And this, my friend, is why we have bin Laden, and Linux/RMS zealots :-). (Disclaimer: I'm not against Linux at all I just know a lot of ppl who wouldn't switch OS's if their life depended on it, and I find that quite interesting).

            • Biblical "truth" (Score:3, Interesting)

              by DG ( 989 )
              (We seem to be in agreement on the issue of the danger of fanatics - of any stripe - so I promise not to beat you up too badly :)

              But the issue of Biblical "truth" is an interesting one, because so many people's concepts of what "Biblical truth" actually *means* are so different and so contradictory - often self-contraditictory.

              If I understand your position correctly (and I agree that text is not a perfect communications medium), you believe:

              1) Everything in the Bible is True

              2) Mistakes may be made in translation, such that a False version of what was once a True statement may appear in later versions.

              3) Even given a perfect translation, people may (intentionally or accidently) misconstrue what a passage actually means, and so the version of the passage as it exists in their heads may become False.

              I agree wholeheartedly with statements 2 and 3 from the above summary.

              Now let me make the following observations

              1) There are some parts of the Bible that are very obviously False - the Earth was not built 6 days, for example. The four Gospels (which all discuss the same events) often contradict each other on dates, places, and sequences of events.

              So there are passages to one can point to and state "this is False" and other passages one can point to and state "up to three of these may be False, but we don't know which"

              2) Given the lack of access to early copies (which may not necessarily track the original texts themselves) and the lack of ability of most Christians to read the ancient languages (usually Greek) in which they were written, most people must thus read the Bible in the translation to their native language, and thus get the full force of any translation and copy errors.

              This in turn means that in their copy of the Bible, there exist passages which are not the same as the "True" Bible, and so are False.

              3) For a given person, there is some level of probability that they will misconstrue a given passage at any given time, and so their "internal model" of the passage becomes False.

              When you tie this all together, this means that:

              1) for a given passage, there is some probability that the passage is False

              2) You have no way of determining what that probability is

              This means that _every single passage in the Bible is suspect_!

              How can one choose to base a life, make decisions, or answer questions, based on the contents of the Bible, if there is no way to know if the answer is True or not?

              DG
              • Thanks for the well thought reply.

                There are some parts of the Bible that are very obviously False - the Earth was not built 6 days, for example.

                The earth could have litterally have been built in 6 days. There is no way to prove or disprove this. Or, the context in which the word "Day" is described does not mean a literal 24 hour day. Of course, this is all speculation, and we can't prove one way or the other. I think the important Truth that we learn from this passage is that God created the earth, and we get to learn a little background to help us understand this. As far as the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John being contradictory, this is a very large conversation, but I'm quite frankly surprised that people can't logically reconcile many of the seeming contradictions. Actually, there are far more difficult to reconcile contractions in the bible outside of the Gospels, so I wonder why the Gospels are picked on so much.

                2) Given the lack of access to early copies (which may not necessarily track the original texts themselves) and the lack of ability of most Christians to read the ancient languages (usually Greek) in which they were written, most people must thus read the Bible in the translation to their native language

                If you review the process in which these early copies are translated I would expect that translation is extremely accurate. There is also a belief that devine intervention is involved during said translation. This is, of course, not proveable, but it is logical. Also, many biblical scholsrs are fluent in both Greek and Hebrew. Although I don't find this necessary for myself to understand scriptures, it is invaluable to the "science" as a whole.

                2) You have no way of determining what that probability is.

                I believe that the Bible is God's word. It is he that speaks to me through the Bible. Although I make mistakes, that does not prevent me from seeing the Truth and learning. I believe that when someone is honestly seeking the Truth from scripture that there is divine intervention. Many times we are not seeking the Truth but we are seeking to be, "Right" in our (or our culture/relgion's) eyes, or selfseeking in some other manner. All I can do is try to seek the Truth, and understand what I don't yet understand or know.

                Speaking of text being a limitation, I find it hard to express a lot of these ideas via this forum. Thanks for the challenges though. To finish I think the two biggest problems with religion is fundamentalism and religiosity (religion for the sake of the religion). This is what creates the fanatics that blow up buildings in the name of "God", and protest abortion clinics in the name of "God".

                • Re:Biblical "truth" (Score:3, Interesting)

                  by DG ( 989 )

                  Thanks for the well thought reply.



                  No problem.



                  As you can probably tell, I am an athiest. I was raised Roman Catholic (and so got the full religious education) and I came to atheism once I was on my own and free to think for myself. I have a lot of sympathy for the religious, in that I understand full well how difficult it is to let go of stuff that was taught to you as (heh) gospel truth for most of your whole life.



                  The earth could have litterally have been built in 6 days. There is no way to prove or disprove this. Or, the context in which the word "Day" is described does not mean a literal 24 hour day.



                  Well, you can't have it both ways.



                  As it sits right now, the word ancient Greek word that has been translated as "day", meaning "a 24 hour period". Certainly that is the interpretation that is commonly accepted.



                  If "day" does NOT mean "a 24 hour period", but rather "some period of time very much longer than 24 hours" then the common use of the word "day" in Genesis is an ERROR - a faithfully reproduced, painstakingly copied ERROR.



                  It is, of course, possible that God snapped His fingers, and the Earth came together complete with a fossil record and the evidence of very long term geological processes. As such, it is impossible to disprove, in a scientific way, that the Earth was not created in 6 days.



                  At some point you have to make a decision: given the massive amounts of evidence that show that the Earth was created millions of years ago and then slowly acquired life through natural processes, does that not make more sense than an Earth created in a mystical fashion in an unnaturally quick timeframe, complete with falsified evidence of a natural creation and the slow development of life?



                  If you are of the camp that believes that God triggered the Big Bang and then sat back and watched His divine plan unfold, fine. That is a much more reasonable Creation story, as it allows all the scientific evidence we have to date to remain True. But if you *are* of ths camp, then Genesis is in error, and at least one portion of the Bible is FALSE.



                  I wonder why the Gospels are picked on so much.



                  Mostly because - unlike the Old Testement - the Gospels provide four independant accounts of the same events. There is no "Book of Moses according to Levi", "Book of Moses according to Samuel" etc so it is harder to show that given Old Testament passages refer to the same event (if indeed they actually do)



                  But the Gospels refer to the life and actions of the same guy, who incidently is supposed to be the Son of God (and so what he says and does is core to Christianity)



                  If the Gospels contradict themselves on so much as one fact - say the date of the birth of Jesus - then at least one of them is False on that fact. If there is one Falsehood, there may be more, and you have no way of determining which passage is False or not.



                  Which is another way of stating that there is no way to tell is a given Biblical passage is actually True.



                  I'm not the first person to ever state this. Many, many learned scholars throughout the history of Christianity have struggled with this concept, and great and amazing feats of logical gymnastics have taken place in order to rationallize these logical problems away. But notwithstanding great efforts at rationalization, the core problem remains: how do you trust a book that contains known false statements, given that there is no way to independantly test any of these statements outside of the context of the book?



                  It is very, very good that you are seeking the Truth, but Truth is a very slippery fish indeed. It is one of the core tenets of science that determining Truth is very difficult, that you have to be prepared to provide excellent evidence of given would-be Truth, and you have to be ready to accept that today's Truth may well be disproven tomorrow. The "Truth" of science is a fuzzy, nebulous concept that you at best glimpse out of the corner of your eye from time to time. But it also maps very well into the real world.



                  Ask yourself this: "Why do I insist on the existence of God and the Truth of the Bible?" What purpose does it serve? Seriously. Think about this. Meditate on it. And see if you can answer yourself truthfully. I'd be interested in what you discover.



                  DG

        • Hey, that's a pretty good way of putting it. God created the concept of evolution, truly showing what a bright entity he is.

          Too bad the sequence in Genesis is slightly irregular. Then again, whoever reads the bible to the letter anyway? It's self-contradictory and by multiple authors (however divinely inspired they were).
    • >better referred to as an inland sea like the Great Lakes

      I'm not even going to comment on this.

  • What does it really matter? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by olethrosdc ( 584207 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @05:07AM (#3755843) Homepage Journal
    I think I ought to summarize the current 'mars' situation. I don't have anything against exploring mars, etc, but it seems to me like people are trying to make worthwhile stories out of trivia.

    I think we have been bombarded with the "news" of water on Mars for long enough so far. First it was the polar ice cape water residue, which was quite important. Then there was the hydrogen-trace confirmation, which is perhaps not so important, though it does show that there might be water close enough to the surface to be extracted. However this particular data is completely irrelevant unless there are plans to actually go there and extract water.

    Now they have finished a high-resolution altitude map. They used this to calculate the possible origin of the water that shaped a valley, and traced it to something looking like a lake basin. Again, nice, since people theorize that if there were life on mars, there would be a higher chance that it had existed at a lake.

    But, is this important? As far as I am concerned, the answer is no, unless someone decides to actually send a mission to the planet to gather hard evidence. Which currently seems impossible, considering the amount of money wasted on the ISS (which has no clear function IMHO).
    • But, is this important? As far as I am concerned, the answer is no, unless someone decides to actually send a mission to the planet to gather hard evidence. Which currently seems impossible, considering the amount of money wasted on the ISS (which has no clear function IMHO).

      It matters because this may provide another good incentive to stop wasting money on the ISS and start investing it in unmanned, robotic Mars probes again.

    • Re:What does it really matter? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Boiling_point_ ( 443831 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @05:55AM (#3755951) Homepage
      But, is this important? As far as I am concerned, the answer is no, unless someone decides to actually send a mission to the planet to gather hard evidence.

      An awful lot of useful data is gained by remote sensing Mars - just like on Earth. You don't have to touch down in order to learn.

      Different forms of matter have things called spectal signatures - the particular pattern of all the different wavelengths emitted/reflected. You can use these signatures to work out what sort of stuff rocks are made of, how old they are, what concentrations they're in and in what patterns they lie.

      On Earth it's arguably more interesting, since you can tell different types of vegetation and settlement patterns just by measuring, say, the infra-red or ultraviolet you can see.

      Research on Mars isn't about Martian life, all of the time. It's not even about terraforming and possible future human settlement - it's about taking science developed and theorised on Earth and applying it in new and challenging locations. By finding evidence of a huge body of water on Mars, we now know that all the theories of Martian geohistory (is that a word?) that rely on a small volume of past surface water are less likely to be true. This sort of stuff might be important in ways we don't know yet.

      ...it seems to me like people are trying to make worthwhile stories out of trivia.

      Sure, plenty of people like to think of the possibilities and implications of teeny lifeforms sprouting up on a nearby planet. Fewer people, but they are out there, are just as fascinated by the basic interactions of huge universal systems and forces - of things on a scale millions of orders of magnitude bigger. Sometimes the news doesn't need to be dramatic, if you've got your eye on a bigger picture anyway :)

      • By finding evidence of a huge body of water on Mars, we now know that all the theories of Martian geohistory (is that a word?) that rely on a small volume of past surface water are less likely to be true.

        The words you're looking for may be areohistory and areology. See Red Mars [amazon.com], Green Mars [amazon.com], Blue Mars [amazon.com] by Kim Stanley Robinson [amazon.com].
        • The words you're looking for may be areohistory and areology.

          Not to be confused with aeriohistory and aeriology being man's favourite pass-time, the study of nipples ;-)

    • Re:What does it really matter? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anarchofascist ( 4820 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @06:28AM (#3756000) Homepage Journal
      ... there might be water close enough to the surface to be extracted. However this particular data is completely irrelevant unless there are plans to actually go there and extract water.

      I don't understand your lack of understanding. I'll try to put it into simple terms:

      A: Water on Mars makes Mars more interesting to visit, because where there's water there is/was life.
      B: Water is to rockets what petroleum is to cars.

      Therefore, these discoveries make Mars easier to return from, and make it a more interesting place to visit. Therefore it is more likely that one or more countries (probably the Chinese at this rate) will want to pay to send people there.
      • "A: Water on Mars makes Mars more interesting to visit, because where there's water there is/was life.
        "B: Water is to rockets what petroleum is to cars.

        "Therefore, these discoveries make Mars easier to return from, and make it a more interesting place to visit."

        So, in other words, the discoveries of this latest exploration of Mars are vital, because...they make it easier to explore Mars some more! Yeah!

        It's odd. When I was a kid up until my late teens, I was all for space exploration. I read _Astronomy_ and _Sky and Telescope_ magazines all the time and watched out for the latest Voyager pictures, I devoured Arthur C. Clarke's writings, I waited for the day when there would be manned expeditions to the Moon and Mars. I'm not exactly sure when the disillusionment came. The fight over funding the Superconducting Supercollider versus the space station had something to do with it, because it made me aware for the first time how much the funding of these massive projects had to do with bringing the pork home to defence contractors and how little it had to do with science.

        So I don't go in for these "onwards and upwards into space for no particular reason" projects any more. Periodically we're told of new evidence (often old evidence dusted off) of water/organic compounds/primitive life on Mars--all of which seems to me calculated to keep up the rate of spending on space exploration. Most of the reasons I've seen offered for why we should care about such discoveries are on the line of yours: they justify further exploration. Rather a circular justification, don't you think?

        It's all about exploitation in the end. Talk all you want about scientific discovery, in the end, it's all about colonization and military exploitation. None of which will benefit people like me, of course. To quote (well, misquote) the astronomy Robert Burnham, when asked if he was excited about the prospect of someday flying to the Moon, "Are you kidding? I can barely afford to fly to New York."

        hyacinthus.
        • None of which will benefit people like me, of course.

          You're right, you know. The space program should be cancelled, so the money can be used to ensure that bags of chips and six packs of beer can be regularly delivered to your door by courier.
          • Okaaay. Let me put it this way: why should I and my friends and others like us, who are usually two paychecks away from bankruptcy because of rent and taxes, and live in fear that a serious illness or a broken leg might bring us to financial ruin (as happened to an acquaintance of mine last year), work up much enthusiasm for government funding to fuel _your_ Star-Trek-inspired fantasies of going where no man has gone before? Hmm? Why should we care?

            hyacinthus.
            • Oh, I dunno, maybe 'cause some of us have children who will probably have children, who will have children, ad infinitum, and at some point life on Earth may no longer be viable. It would be nice to have someplace else to go.

              Or it might be interesting to find out whether or not life ever got started someplace else besides here, and if so, how it relates to life on this planet so that we have more information on which to base our decisions on how we manage Earth.

              There is more to life than the here and now.

        • See, here's the deal. See that big yellow light bulb in the big room with the blue ceiling? We know, sooner or later, that that light's going to burn out. We also know that, before it does, it'll get real big. If we're not off Earth by the time it happens, there won't be any people left. And that's assuming we don't manage to render ourselves extinct by any of the other ways we're doing our best to kill ourselves off with. Either way, the space program is our only means of assuring that the human race goes on without Earth. Maybe it doesn't benefit you directly, but your heirs will benefit. It assures that you will have heirs, period.

          Yeah, maybe it's military applications that get the funding. But that's no reason to throw them out, when they can be used for good for a change.

          Probably Mars colonization will never benefit people like you and me. But how about colonization of the asteroid belt? Lessons learned in Mars investigation could apply just as well. And if you're too short-sighted to see the benefits to you and me in mining the asteroids (how does "ridiculously large supply of raw materials" sound), I suggest you visit your opthamologist today.
          • All of your arguments are valid. However, seems to me that we really ought to colonize the moon before we get all hot and bothered about Mars. Lots of the lessons we'd learn from a Mars mission could probably be gleaned from a Moon colony.

            Besides, we really ought to have a giant radio telescope on the far side of the moon - where else can you get radio silence these days?
      • I don't understand your lack of understanding. I'll try to put it into simple terms:

        B: Water is to rockets what petroleum is to cars.

        And you're insulting his lack of understanding. Petroleum provides energy to cars. Find me an extraplanetary rocket that runs on water.
        • And you're insulting his lack of understanding. Petroleum provides energy to cars. Find me an extraplanetary rocket that runs on water

          Uhh... I would be a little more carefull about that "insulting...lack of confidence" part of yours.
          The main booster of the Shuttle runs by burning hydrogen and oxygen into water. Reverse the process and you're producing rocket fuel from water.
        • Find me an extraplanetary rocket that runs on water

          I will when you find me a car that runs on petroleum.

          No car runs on petroleum. They run on a combustable chemical (sometimes petroleum, sometimes old fish-n-chips oil), and OXYGEN. Water, is simply a convenient way to store a combustible chemical (hydrogen) and oxygen.
    • considering the amount of money wasted on the ISS (which has no clear function IMHO).

      The ISS does research in a micro-gravity environment, is a unifying force in space exploration and a good platform for testing if the life support systems for a mission to mars is up to the task.

      Basically, the ISS can reduce the risk of wasting a lot of money on a doomed mission to mars.

      Oh, and it'll be a really bright, shining object when it's done. Expect cults to evolve around it.

  • Texas (Score:5, Funny)

    by selderrr ( 523988 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @05:08AM (#3755844) Journal
    What is it with texas these days ? ./ seems to measure anything extraterestrial in STU (Standard Texas Units).

    Just for clarity : is this a metric unit ? Can we count in Millitexi, picotexi, GIGATEXI (drooldrool) ?

    • Re:Texas (Score:5, Funny)

      by Rhinobird ( 151521 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @05:27AM (#3755882) Homepage
      No it's an English unit. See there is the base Standard Texas Unit (STU) which is sub-divided into 4840 square Rhode Islands (RI). Each Rhode Island is of course 160 square Country Miles. (as opposed to a regular mile) Each coutry mile is divided into 220 City blocks. Eventually you end up with smidgeons and skoshies.

      • Re:Texas (Score:3, Funny)

        by Xaoswolf ( 524554 )
        How does the Library of Congress fit into this? Or is it perhaps a liquid measure?

      • Rhode Island (Score:5, Funny)

        by overunderunderdone ( 521462 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @09:53AM (#3756540)
        As a resident of Rhode Island I'm terrified of the possibility that one of those floods "the size of Rhode Island" or wildfires "the size of Rhode Island" will someday actually happen IN Rhode Island.
        • Judging by the size of Rhode Island, a flood and/or wildfire wouldn't last very long, so there's not much for you to worry about. A fire there may fit into a CNN broadcast for about 30 seconds like this:

          "Dan Mannequin here with breaking news. As you can see a wildfire is loose in the northern tip of Rhode Island. We're getting reports of lots of smoke and 10 foot flames from some area homes' fences. Ok now it looks like from this angle..yes the fire has proceeded through the northern tip and is now in the middle. The northern fire is gone as the fire has moved south and consumed a few homes in it's path. Some child's skateboard can be seen smoldering from our CNN satellite images but it's nothing serious. What's that? Oh yes, the fire has now been extinguished. A short but tragic event. You can see how brokenhearted this one man looks sitting on the charred remains of his lawn."
      • No, its an English unit [...] Eventually you end up with smidgeons and skoshies.

        For the record, skosh has a Japanese origin (sukoshi, meaning small).

        - bp

    • Re:Texas (Score:2, Insightful)

      by shirro ( 17185 )
      I like the concept of the STU.

      Unfortunately NASA can not do metric conversion even if their space craft depend on it. Since, like most world citizens I have no concept of how big a mile is, it is a relief we can all speak in STU.

      Everyone knows that Texas is big (except for Alaskans). Not as big as a decent Australian state(or electoral division or farm) but bigger than any of those puny little European countries.

      I can envision Texas sitting in the bottom quarter of Western Australia, or taking up two thirds of South Australia, and I can start to think in terms of how often I would have to fill my car to drive around it.

      But New Mexico! Nobody knows or gives a shit about them. Keep to multiples of Texas or nothing!

  • Rlated Article on BBC (Score:5, Informative)

    by Gopher971 ( 219910 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @05:09AM (#3755845) Journal
    The BBC website has a related article about the formation of the Ma'adim Vallis. It can be found at News.BBC.Co.Uk [bbc.co.uk]
  • Like... When did this flood occur? How long was the water present? Was it triggered by a meteor impact, melting subsurface ice?

  • Hmm... (Score:5, Funny)

    by muzzmac ( 554127 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @05:17AM (#3755858)
    I'm not interested until they find a Martian nudist beach.

    I love those Martian chicks!

  • Catastrophic? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bob_jordan ( 39836 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @05:36AM (#3755911)
    Exactly what was catastrophic about it? Did people die? Were towns washed away?

    This is mars we are talking about. Impressively large flood, yes. Catastrophic flood, I don't think so. Worst case, some large rocks got moved about.

    Bob.
    • The catastrophy about this is that they selected the word catastrophic to send the submiliminal hint about martian life.

    • Re:Catastrophic? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Rogerborg ( 306625 )
      • Exactly what was catastrophic about it? Did people die? Were towns washed away?

      The problem with pedantary is that you really have to be sure that you're correct.

      3. (Geol.) A violent and widely extended change in the surface of the earth, as, an elevation or subsidence of some part of it, effected by internal causes also 3: a sudden violent change in the earth's surface [syn: cataclysm] [dictionary.com]

      Before someone tries to up the pedantry, there's nothing in the greek root of either words that's specific to the third planet of our solar system. ;-P

      • > The problem with pedantary is that you really have to be sure that you're correct.

        I wasn't trying to be pedantic. My point was that I didn't think catastrophic was a good choice of word, regardless of its pedantic correctness.

        catastrophic: Of, relating to, or involving a catastrophe.

        catastrophe: A sudden violent change in the earth's surface; a cataclysm.

        cataclysm: A devastating flood.
        [from Latin cataclysmos, deluge]

        I don't personally believe there was a lot to be devastated therefore I still belive it was a poor choice of words, however correct it could be argued to be.

        Words lose there power when they are used for trivial things.

        trivial: nobody died.
        Source: Me.

        catastrophe: A complete failure; a fiasco: The food was cold, the guests quarreled the whole dinner was a catastrophe.
        Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

        When somebody uses a word to describe a spoiled dinner party, its hard to use the same word to describe a flood the size of two states on another planet and still have any hope of injecting some awe into the description.

        I think catastrophe is overused.

        > The problem with pedantary is that you really have to be sure that you're correct.

        Yes you do. I'm sure you'll try harder next time. :-)

        Bob.

  • mars... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by prmths ( 325452 ) <.prmths. .at. .f00.org.> on Monday June 24, 2002 @05:37AM (#3755914) Homepage
    water doesnt necessarily imply life, although life as we know it requires water. Knowing with certainty that man isnt (or hasnt always been) alone in the universe, no matter how simple the extra-terrestrial life is (was) has been something mankind has wondered about since the very notion of a universe was conceived. Among Mars, Europa and a couple other potential life-bearing worlds, Mars is closest and most practical to visit. Knowing that there is (was) something even as simple as extra-terrestrial bacteria would change the mankind's view on the universe. (or it would be shrugged off by people that refuse to believe that there is anything outside the Earth)
    there are still those fruitcakes that believe that the space program is a hoax and that the moon missions were all a hollywood gag. I suppose nothing would change the minds of those people, but that's their own choice.

    I believe that a mission to Mars, Europa, or just a general increased interest in the space program would do the world a lot of good.
    Some people may argue that the money used on these missions would be better used to 'feed the hungry' or 'help the poor' ... throwing money at a problem never helps in the long-run.. the real problem is lack of resources and/or means of transporting them efficiently. A lot of NASA spawned technologies are used in every-day life and make life a lot easier.- even for the 'unfortunate' If people have the foresight and wisdom to support these organizations, we would be much better off. Sure NASA is bloated and inefficient, and i agree that needs to change.. and from what I can tell, things are getting better there. Ultimately, a privatized 'NASA' would be best.. but that seems far off.

  • Why water? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ptbrown ( 79745 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @05:39AM (#3755918)
    Every time someone finds some peculiar geological formation on Mars, the first conclusion reached always seems to be "It must've been carved by water!"

    Why? What makes these guys specifically say it's water -- and liquid water at that?

    Now, I'm no NASA scientist or anything. But am I completely nuts for thinking that there are other ways to cause erosion than liquid water? I can imagine an extremely dense mass of CO2 flowing around the surface of the planet carving out valleys.... but like I said, I don't have any idea what I'm talking about.

    So why should I believe that the people talking about water on Mars have any better idea?
    • I can imagine an extremely dense mass of CO2 flowing around the surface of the planet carving out valleys.... but like I said, I don't have any idea what I'm talking about.

      You're right, you don't know what you're talking about. Especially since CO2 wouldn't be liquid under any plausible past conditions on Mars. (You'd need several athmospheres of pressure, and it is doubtful if Mars ever had even one athmosphere of pressure.)

    • Re:Why water? (Score:3, Informative)

      by jukal ( 523582 )
      read this: Features of Martian Cratered tarrain [virginia.edu] and the other pages on geomorphology [virginia.edu] at university of Virginia, for example.

      <clip> The probable processes that modified the Martian cratered terrain include eolian deposition and erosion, fluvial erosion and mass wasting, and groundwater sapping. </clip> See the page mentioned above for description of the terms.

    • Re:Why water? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by linzeal ( 197905 )
      I would suggest researching fluvial mechanics [google.com] if you want to be in the know.

    • Re:Why water? (Score:4, Informative)

      by stevelinton ( 4044 ) <sal@dcs.st-and.ac.uk> on Monday June 24, 2002 @09:15AM (#3756389) Homepage
      The logic comes in a couple of steps.

      Firstly the erosion seems to have been by a liquid rather than a gas (wind erosion) or a solid (like glacial erosion). I'm no expert, butI can quite believe that details of teh shape of the features would make this reasonably unambiguous.

      Secondly, liquids in the universe are really rather unusual. Basic physics gives us an idea of the range of temperatures and pressures likely to have existed on the surface of Mars since it solidified while the relative abundances of elements in the solar system rule out a bunch of others. So, for instance:

      liquid sulfur would not plausibly have remained liquid

      there is not enough nitrogen for liquid ammonia and anyway it would probably have boiled off

      the pressure would have been too low for liquid CO2

      etc.

      Water seems the most likely candidate simply because it is made of very common elements, and it is a liquid at temperatures and pressures that we can imagine having existed on Mars.

      • To clarify one thing: liquid CO2 is not in the picture because it takes quite high pressures for it to exist. If a pressure bottle of liquid CO2 is released at Earth's atmospheric pressure, it simultaneously boils and freezes, becoming a pile of frozen CO2 and a cloud of vapor within a few minutes. If it can't exist here, it certainly couldn't exist on Mars.

        As for other materials: if you see a lake of liquid on Earth, it's either water or molten rock, and it's pretty easy to tell the difference. Other liquids (mercury, alcohol, petroleum, freon) are the product of biological or human processes, and do not exist on the surface naturally in large quantities.

        Mars undoubtedly has had large lava flows, but the tracks left by those are readily distinguished from watercourses. (Melted rocks are a big clue.) So I cannot definitely 100% say the apparent liquid erosion wasn't due to rivers of mercury - I'd put 99.99% odds against it. It's almost certain that any mercury on Mars would be chemically combined in rocks, just like on Earth, and if some unimaginable process was to break down those ores, there still wouldn't be enough.

        It might be possible for petroleum to burst from the ground in large quantities - if you assume either that Mars once had life even lusher than our Cretacious era, or that most of the scientists are wrong and petroleum is of geological origin, and there's somehow more of it on Mars. But it seems pretty unlikely. Of course, if you really want to see manned flights to Mars soon, see that Bush hears about this theory. 8-)

  • Evidence of Tidal Lock (Score:3, Interesting)

    by smallduck ( 321382 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @05:54AM (#3755948) Journal
    Richard C. Hoagland and friends have some odd theories, but one of them has been somewhat predictive along the lines of this finding. The theory is that Mars was in tidal lock in the not-too-distant past, ie. that it used to be a moon of a larger planet (which exploded or something).

    Predicted by this theory: the distribution of underground water-ice at the equator being primarily in two areas 180 degrees apart. This is what was found, and funny thing, these are apparently areas of high-elevation, not low-elevation.

    Also predicted, climate change on Mars due to cataclismic event as opposed to a slow decline. Such a rapid event would cause exactly the sort of thing described in this mars lake article.

    Another good prediction: the 'stains' visible in Mars orbiter pics that look like liquid water on the surface, in fact are liquid water leaking to the surface. Others poo-poo this idea because they say Mars climate change was geologically ancient, and if water was leaking to the surface as frequently as the pics suggest, it would all be gone by now. Hoagland's theory says the climate change was relatively recent (millions of years), so this really is water and its not all gone yet. Look for this to be found next & lets see if the standard model can survive.

    www.enterprisemission.com

    Richard C. Hoagland is coincidentally is on the Coast to Coast AM (yes, Art Bell's radio show) tonight, not discussing this topic however (hmm, Speilberg producing TV miniseries about what??)

  • New mexico??? (Score:5, Funny)

    by sofar ( 317980 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @06:19AM (#3755986) Homepage
    'the size of Texas and New Mexico combined.'

    FYI, the European version of the article translates this into:

    'the size of France'

    • FYI, the European version of the article translates this into: 'the size of France'

      Who would have thought that geologists at the Smithsonian would have found the origin of the coneheads [jt.org]?

      --
      Evan "Always ready to poke fun at the neighbors across the puddle"

    • Re:New mexico??? (Score:3, Informative)

      by The Mayor ( 6048 )
      You've got the translation wrong. Closer to the size of France and Spain.

  • This isn't news... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Cally ( 10873 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @06:26AM (#3755995) Homepage
    it's olds for nerds... images from as far back as Pathfinder [nasa.gov] showed conclusive evidence of catastrophic outburst floods. That's why Mars Odyssey [nasa.gov] carries the gamma ray spectrometer [ttp] which is tuned to look for the hydrogen signal from subsurface water [nasa.gov] in the first place.

  • From the fringe (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Monday June 24, 2002 @06:36AM (#3756009) Journal
    Of course, elements from the fringe have been arguing there is/has been water there for ages. It seems that it is only now the the official scientists are starting to say "well, there could be", or even "look at our new discovery."

    Examples of how strange this get are seen here [enterprisemission.com]. Ignoring the junk science nonsense, the pictures are interesting. If you scroll about halfway down, there is one mars photo, conveniently linked to the nasa archive, that looks for all the world like an actual sea shore. So much so it is startling.

    Of course, the real scientists are taking their sweet time coming to any conclusions (insert plausible reason here), which is driving the hobbyists and others right up a wall.

    • Re:From the fringe (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Cally ( 10873 )

      Of course, elements from the fringe have been arguing there is/has been water there for ages. It seems that it is only now the the official scientists are starting to say "well, there could be", or even "look at our new discovery."

      Examples of how strange this get are seen here [enterprisemission.com]. Ignoring the junk science nonsense, the pictures are interesting. If you scroll about halfway down, there is one mars photo, conveniently linked to the nasa archive, that looks for all the world like an actual sea shore. So much so it is startling.


      Yeah, but there are "fringe scientists" out there who claim they've spotted Banyan trees(!) and vegetation [marsunearthed.com] in the JPL archives... IIRC Arthur C. Clarke decided to make an idiot of himself by backing these claims. I can just about stretch to contemplating a hypothesis that some sort of primitive, unicellular slime mould manages to eke out a precarious existence in the sub-zero temperatures, extreme aridity and all-round Antartica conditions. After all, there are bacteria that manage to survive by living on the bottom of pebbles in Antarctica. But Banyan trees?... sorry, you lost me there...
      • Arthur C. Clarke decided to make an idiot of himself by backing these claims.

        As I recall, I believe he said that the pictures were anamolus enough that they should be investigated. Without saying specically that he gave creedance, but that something weird was going one

        Banyan Trees

        yep I recall those. that's what you get for messing with photographs at the limits of resolution with data bordering on the noise floor.

        but that still doesn't make the original photos any less interesting. With the hundreds of hobbyists pouring over the thousands of Nasa Mars photos, they are sure to find some wierd things.

        of course, their explanations may be weird too, but that is a separate issue.

  • Flood on Mars?!
    There is no even single internet connection on Mars yet! How somebody could flood it?!

  • Trying not to flame here. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ZigMonty ( 524212 ) <slashdot.zigmonty@postinbox@com> on Monday June 24, 2002 @09:49AM (#3756517)
    I'm trying not to flame here but how many times are they going to announce the existance of water on Mars? Do we really need to hear about the latest dried up lake? New Scientist had a good editorial on this recently.

    NASA seems to alternate between press releases of "Water/Life on Mars", "Yet Another Module of a Usless Space Station Launched", "Some 'Kids' Program" and "30 Years Since We Last Did Something (Orbit/Moon etc)".

    I am a firm believer in space exploration but I'm really starting to loose faith in NASA. The search for life in the universe is important but should it really be the program's primary goal? IMHO, we should be trying to commercialize space (for humans not just satellites). NASA should help corporations build space hotels, start charging a $million a flight and fund their science that way. The Mars fossils aren't going anywhere! With a good space infrastructure looking for life becomes much easier.

    Reply, don't mod.

  • I think the new discovery of what was an ancient lake of water on that planet is kind of stating the obvious anyway.

    Doesn't anymore remember the Mariner 9 mission? Mariner 9 in 1971 revealed what amounts of dried-up river channels, proof that there used to liquid water flowing on the surface of Mars in the distant past. The question that purplexed scientists was what happened to that water; the discovery from Mars Odyssey 2001 orbiter may have confirmed that a large portion of that liquid water has now turned into ice that is now underneath the surface of Mars.

  • Blue Mars [ridgecrest.ca.us]

    A simple exploration of what happens if Mars gets flooded with water to the 0 level of the MOLA Data Set.

    Not really relevant to the discussion of wheteher or not water (or how much water) exists on mars right now, but interesting.

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