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Well....they maybe found there


or confirmed it was shadow really but was wrong

Maybe they will dig a Shadow Ship out

So is this water any use to us if we go there - can we extract it - I assume so?

High Salt is usually bad for life (as we know it Jim) IIRC? - not much lives it he Dead Sea?

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Yeah, my guess is also liquid water.

I doubt it. Its probably yet another discovery of a compound which means there might have been water there at one time.

Turned out to be flowing liquid water.

 Mr Morden wrote:
So is this water any use to us if we go there - can we extract it - I assume so?

Yes, it has lots of uses for possible terraforming or colonizing, and it also opens the possibility of current or previous life on the planet, as well.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Yup, its liquid water, was hoping for microbial life.

Maybe we'll still get that. I am holding out hope.

I agree. So now what. More guessing and theorizing. Let me know when they find life. Now that would be interesting.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Maybe they will dig a Shadow Ship out

So is this water any use to us if we go there - can we extract it - I assume so?

High Salt is usually bad for life (as we know it Jim) IIRC? - not much lives it he Dead Sea?

The dead sea has microbrial life such as bacteria and fungi living in it. Other high salinity areas have similar. Its not an automatic disqualifier of life, just generally 'complex' life.

 Ouze wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Yeah, my guess is also liquid water.

I doubt it. Its probably yet another discovery of a compound which means there might have been water there at one time.

Turned out to be flowing liquid water.

Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit. They actually found something substantial.

Well looks like it's time to raise the bionics budget!

Hey hey! Running water is pretty big! Thanks for not letting me down NASA!!

Still a million to one chance of life...




In all seriousness, though, this is mega!

Well maybe this will lead to more probes to check out some of the larger moons by Saturn and Jupiter

I seen a documentary about martians once and they attacked earth we just need loud music right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMdC45S79uQ

HUGE for future manned missions being sustainable.

I wonder how long it'll be until we get Martian bottled water.

All of it is insignificant to the discovery of a bioluminescent sea turtle.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/09/150928-sea-turtles-hawksbill-glowing-biofluorescence-coral-reef-ocean-animals-science150928-sea-turtles-hawksbill-glowing-biofluorescence-coral-reef-ocean-animals-science/

Life on Earth came from the ocean, so I'm excited about both life on Mars, and the potential to colonize it more easily.


I'll still settle for Elvis, Tu-Pac, and Michael Jackson though.

Rush Limbaugh pans evidence of water on Mars as part of 'leftist agenda'

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/rush-limbaugh-mars-leftist-plot-214179

Limbaugh said that although he wasn’t entirely sure what the agenda was,

Brilliant.


.. what was that expression about reality having a liberal bias ..?

Wait, what?

I mean, what?

Ok, whatever, ignoring Limbaugh because flowing liquid water on Mars is heck of amazing.

If they were ever to find just microbial life on another planet or moon, it would make my life.

 toasteroven wrote:
If they were ever to find just microbial life on another planet or moon, it would make my life.

Speaking of the leftist agenda, if they did find extraterrestrial life it would be a massive blow to the religious right and creationism. Might as well pack up their gak and go home. Of course, they won't. No doubt we'd get a load of new "interpretations" of Genesis so that includes aliens.

 BrotherGecko wrote:
All of it is insignificant to the discovery of a bioluminescent sea turtle.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/09/150928-sea-turtles-hawksbill-glowing-biofluorescence-coral-reef-ocean-animals-science150928-sea-turtles-hawksbill-glowing-biofluorescence-coral-reef-ocean-animals-science/

Funny, I just read that before heading over here.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
HUGE for future manned missions being sustainable.

Not economically, not at all.

 Smacks wrote:

 toasteroven wrote:
If they were ever to find just microbial life on another planet or moon, it would make my life.

Speaking of the leftist agenda, if they did find extraterrestrial life it would be a massive blow to the religious right and creationism. Might as well pack up their gak and go home. Of course, they won't. No doubt we'd get a load of new "interpretations" of Genesis so that includes aliens.

Not really, I think that most religions people accept the fact of extraterrestrial life.

It would be something, to see that water actually flowing. I wonder if the next thing we send there is going to be targeting that area.

 Frazzled wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
HUGE for future manned missions being sustainable.

Not economically, not at all.

Reminds me of Terry Prachet's musings on opera in "Maskerade".


"Opera is what you spend money on."
"But...what do you get out of it?"
"You get opera. You put money in, you see, and opera comes out."
"There is no profit?"
"Profit....profit? No, I don't believe I have come across the word."

Space exploration kinda follow along those same lines.

 Smacks wrote:

 toasteroven wrote:
If they were ever to find just microbial life on another planet or moon, it would make my life.

Speaking of the leftist agenda, if they did find extraterrestrial life it would be a massive blow to the religious right and creationism. Might as well pack up their gak and go home. Of course, they won't. No doubt we'd get a load of new "interpretations" of Genesis so that includes aliens.

You have an extremely outdated perception of religion.

Most religions (including Christianity) and creationism theory don't discount the possibility of extra-terrestrial life. In fact, most of them (including Christianity) state outright that it exists in some form.

I don't think finding some microbes on Mars would suddenly cause religion to crumble.

I was mainly talking about evolution deniers. If it is shown that simple life has arisen elsewhere in the universe independently then it strengthens the case for life emerging through natural processes.

 Frazzled wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
HUGE for future manned missions being sustainable.

Not economically, not at all.

I don't think it really means anything for manned missions. It was already well established that there is water ice on Mars if we wanted to utilise it. However, it was thought that water couldn't exist as a liquid on Mars due to the very thin atmosphere. As atmospheric pressure drops, so too does the boiling point, until it drops below the triple point, which means the ice boils straight into vapour at subzero temperatures without transitioning through a liquid state.

I found a phase diagram which shows the whole process:


The average pressure on Mars is usually going to be well below 10 mbar, so there is only a very narrow window where liquid water could exist, and only at very low altitudes, and at relatively warm temperatures (relative to Mars that is). But now it seems that salts in the soil allow liquid to exist as brine at very low temperatures and pressures, which could explain some curious geological features, and I suppose might open up some new possibilities for microbial life.

Steelmage99 wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
HUGE for future manned missions being sustainable.

Not economically, not at all.

Reminds me of Terry Prachet's musings on opera in "Maskerade".


"Opera is what you spend money on."
"But...what do you get out of it?"
"You get opera. You put money in, you see, and opera comes out."
"There is no profit?"
"Profit....profit? No, I don't believe I have come across the word."

Space exploration kinda follow along those same lines.

That man really did have an answer for everything. I propose a new societal structure be formed on the writings of Pratchett, where everything will make so much more sense...

What price can you put on answering so many fundamental questions about our place in the universe, our past, maybe our future? With the Earth going the way it is, it won't be long before we have an actual need to start looking to manned missions and maybe even settlement on other bodies in space, it's almost certainly better to start getting a foot in the door now.

 reds8n wrote:

Rush Limbaugh pans evidence of water on Mars as part of 'leftist agenda'

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/rush-limbaugh-mars-leftist-plot-214179

Limbaugh said that although he wasn’t entirely sure what the agenda was,

Brilliant.

.. what was that expression about reality having a liberal bias ..?

Sigh... here we go. The expression is that the MEDIA has a liberal bias, reds8n, not "reality" in a general sense. We all have our biases, reds8n, but the article you link to is not simply biased, it is bad journalism that contains actual, provable lies which make the article nothing more than journalistic malpractice.

1. Rush Limbaugh never said "Flowing water on Mars? That’s just part of the liberal agenda." which is what Eliza Collins reports in this article . Let me repeat, IT NEVER HAPPENED. Words to that effect never even left the man's lips.

2. The statement that Limbaugh doesn’t believe NASA found water on mars in the second paragraph is an outright lie. 100% fabrication by the author. He's not saying there is no water, he's saying the news of water will be grabbed by "the left" and used for a political agenda. Do you see the difference? Apparently Eliza and her editor at the Political don't which means they both fail at reading comprehension or they're deliberately misrepresenting facts here. Either way doesn't speak well of the Political or anyone that uses them as a source. Even later in the article, they write that Limbaugh said, "OK so there's flowing water on Mars. Yip yip yip yahoo. Hey, you know me, I'm science 101, big time guy, tech advance it, you know it, I'm all in." before he start bitching about "the left" and their agenda, which is clearly at odds with what the headline states.

For what it's worth, here is what Limbaugh thinks straight from the horses mouth: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2015/09/29/what_i_really_think_about_mars

You don't have to like Limbaugh or what he says, but lying about either doesn't make you the better person.

 Smacks wrote:
I was mainly talking about evolution deniers. If it is shown that simple life has arisen elsewhere in the universe independently then it strengthens the case for life emerging through natural processes.

Initially I was going to say "Well, you should have been more specific!" but then I settled on: Please, just stay on topic here.

[MOD EDIT - RULE #2]

Did I mishear about the water being too salty or somehow contaminated for human consumption? If so, that would mean it would need to be processed before it could be used. That in turn means special equipment just for that purpose.