NASA Schedules Briefing to Announce Significant Find on Mars

[annihilation]

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/dec/HQ_M06186_Mars_Briefing.html


http://www.nasa.gov/templateimages/title/title_nasa_news.gifhttp://www.nasa.gov/images/common/spacer.gifhttp://www.nasa.gov/images/common/spacer.gif
Dwayne Brown/Erica Hupp
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726/1237

Guy Webster
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-6278


Dec. 4, 2006 MEDIA ADVISORY: M06-186

NASA Schedules Briefing to Announce Significant Find on Mars

WASHINGTON - NASA hosts a news briefing at 1 p.m. EST, Wednesday, Dec. 6, to present new science results from the Mars Global Surveyor. The briefing will take place in the NASA Headquarters auditorium located at 300 E Street, S.W. in Washington and carried live on NASA Television and www.nasa.gov (http://www.nasa.gov/home/index.html).

The agency last week announced the spacecraft's mission may be at its end. Mars Global Surveyor has served the longest and been the most productive of any spacecraft ever sent to the red planet. Data gathered from the mission will continue to be analyzed by scientists.

Panelists include:
- Michael Meyer -- Lead Scientist, Mars Exploration Program, NASA Headquarters, Washington
- Michael Malin -- President and Chief Scientist, Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, Calif.
- Kenneth Edgett -- Scientist, Malin Space Science Systems
- Philip Christensen -- Professor, Arizona State University, Tempe, Ariz.

Reporters at participating agency field centers will be able to ask questions. For more information about NASA TV streaming video, downlink and schedule information, visit the web at:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv (http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html)

For information about NASA and agency programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov (http://www.nasa.gov/home/index.html)

[XShipRider]

Budget maneuvering.

[ElHombre]

Thanks for the heads up, but why is this in PD&R?

[Durandal]

It can't be any more fantastic than putting a base on the moon by 2024. p-)

[annihilation]

It can't be any more fantastic than putting a base on the moon by 2024. p-)

If the rumors aren't true that we already have one on the far side.

[ElHombre]

But that was only to fight the nazis that hid there with the help of aliens in flying saucers at the end of WW2.

[seraosha]

But that was only to fight the nazis that hid there with the help of aliens in flying saucers at the end of WW2.

Yea, I read that info...some folks will believe anything.

[Lazy Lob]

Nah, I bet they found fossils up there so they can go ahead and teach creationism in Kansas. p-)

[Flamming_Python]

But that was only to fight the nazis that hid there with the help of aliens in flying saucers at the end of WW2.

Actually it was to help find the WMD's that Saddam Hussein transferred to the Moon shortly before the American invasion :)

Although the nazi-alien axis might have helped him in this regard.

[ElHombre]

Actually it was to help find the WMD's that Saddam Hussein transferred to the Moon shortly before the American invasion :)

Although the nazi-alien axis might have helped him in this regard.

Helped along with AQ money using oil from Hugo Chavez and launched from missle sites in Cuba with technological help by the French under the control of Chinese Communists.

Who'd I leave out? Of course... Halliburton!

[Ratamacue]

If the articles I'm seeing on my Google homepage are any indication, it sounds like NASA has found evidence that small amounts of liquid water periodically flow on Mars, as recently as several years ago. Pretty incredible discovery, considering that the planet has essentially been geologically dead for three billion years.

[Jobu]

It looks like a big 'maybe' at this point. Something flowed there, we can't say with certainty that it was water but it may have been, and the excitement about the possibility will bring NASA more funding.

[Lazy Lob]

Times Online December 06, 2006

We've found water on Mars, scientists say
Mark Henderson, Science Editor of The Times

The gully that on Mars that scientists say was created by water (NASA/AP)


Liquid water has flowed on the surface of Mars within the past five years, according to new evidence that suggests the Red Planet could currently be capable of harbouring life.

Images taken from an orbiting spacecraft have revealed two fresh features in the Martian landscape that scientists think were been formed by brief torrents of water as recently as 2001.

The remarkable observations show for the first time that modern Mars may not be as dry and barren as is usually assumed, and thus have important implications for its potential as a hospitable place for life.

Wherever liquid water is found on Earth, there is also life, and most scientists consider its presence a prerequisite for the existence of primitive extraterrestrial organisms.

If it sometimes exists on Mars today, it raises the very real prospect that life may not only have evolved there in the past, but could still survive there in modern times.

Water ice has previously been detected at the Martian poles, and many of the planet’s features are known to have been formed by water in the distant past, but there have been few firm indications that it is present today in liquid form.

That has changed with the new images from Nasa’s Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. Between 1999 and last year, it took pictures of thousands of gullies, which have now been examined for evidence of significant change.

Professor Philip Christensen of Arizona State University, a senior scientist with the Mars Global Surveyor team, said: "Five years ago, we were talking about water on Mars five million years ago. Today we can honestly talk about water on Mars today. That revolution in our thinking has really changed how we think about Mars and how we should think about exploring Mars."

At two sites — the Terra Sirenum crater and an unnamed second crater in the Centauri Montes region — channels were seen in later images containing fresh, pale-coloured deposits that appear to have been left by flowing water.

At Terra Sirenum, the image changed dramatically between passes made in December 2001 and April 2005, and at Centauri Montes the changes happened between August 1999 and February 2004.

The character of the deposits left by whatever cascaded briefly down these slopes, particularly the way it has flowed around solid obstacles, points firmly towards water rather than dust as the source of the new features.

“The new gully deposits, formed since August 1999, are light toned and exhibit attributes expected from emplacement aided by a fluid with the properties of liquid water,” said Mike Malin, chief scientist for the camera which took the images.

“The observations suggest that liquid water flowed on Mars during the past decade.”

Details of the new discovery are published in the journal Science.

John Murray of the Open University, one of the lead scientists on the European Mars Express spacecraft, agreed that the new channels appear to have been formed by water. “From the evidence I can see, it really does look like a water flow,” he said.

“It is a really interesting and tantalising find. There is so much evidence of past water flow, when Mars went through a warm, wet period, but if this is right then the same can happen at the present time and is happening at the present time.”

Even short bursts of water flow on Mars today could support life. “This is one more place in which we might possibly find life,” Dr Murray said.

“If you have got micro-organisms frozen in water deposits just below the surface of Mars, then yes these could be revived now. It’s a small possibility but it is a possibility: on Earth, microbes can exist for tens of thousands of years like that and still be revived.”

The water probably emerged from a Martian version of an aquifer, bubbling up from below the surface, and the flow would have rapidly ceased as it froze or evaporated, Dr Murray said.

It is also possible that the water came from melting surface ice deposits, though this is unlikely as no such deposits are visible in the “before” pictures.

In each case, the amount of water that formed the features would have been approximately equivalent to five to ten swimming pools full, said Michael Meyer, Nasa’s lead scientist for Mars exploration.

"If you were there and this was coming down the slope, you’d probably want to get out of the way," he said.

"On Mars, the atmospheric pressure is so low that it’s going to be boiling as it comes off. This is a squirting gun on water on Mars. It may be that no longer do you we think about following the water, but about watching the water."

The images represent a fitting swansong for the Mars Global Surveyor probe, which fell out of contact with mission control last month after spending 10 years in orbit around the planet.

Other scientists described the findings as hugely exciting. “This is the sort of thing you dream about, what everybody’s been waiting for,” said Jennifer Heldmann of Nasa’s Ames Research Centre in California. “It’s fascinating. There’s clearly something that happened.”

Martha Gilmore of Wesleyan University in Connecticut, said: “The discovery is the first physical evidence that liquid water exists on Mars today.”

[chuckster]

This is interesting. Think of the brine shrimp on Earth. Their eggs lay buried in sand for years sometimes. Then a rare rainstorm causes puddles to form and the shrimp live, grow, mate, and lay eggs in the brief time before the puddles dry up, and the cycle repeats. Could something like this be happening on Mars?

[shocker1]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/mgs/pia09028-a-browse.jpg
NASA Images Suggest Water Still Flows in Brief Spurts on Mars
December 06, 2006 NASA photographs have revealed bright new deposits seen in two gullies on Mars that suggest water carried sediment through them sometime during the past seven years.

"These observations give the strongest evidence to date that water still flows occasionally on the surface of Mars," said Dr. Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program, Washington.

Liquid water, as opposed to the water ice and water vapor known to exist at Mars, is considered necessary for life. The new findings heighten intrigue about the potential for microbial life on Mars. The Mars Orbiter Camera on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor provided the new evidence of the deposits in images taken in 2004 and 2005.

"The shapes of these deposits are what you would expect to see if the material were carried by flowing water," said Dr. Michael Malin of Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego. "They have finger-like branches at the downhill end and are easily diverted around small obstacles." Malin is principal investigator for the camera and lead author of a report about the findings published in the journal Science.

The atmosphere of Mars is so thin and the temperature so cold that liquid water cannot persist at the surface. It would rapidly evaporate or freeze. Researchers propose that water could remain liquid long enough, after breaking out from an underground source, to carry debris downslope before totally freezing. The two fresh deposits are each several hundred meters, or yards, long.

The light tone of the deposits could be from surface frost continuously replenished by ice within the body of the deposit. Another possibility is a salty crust, which would be a sign of water's effects in concentrating the salts. If the deposits had resulted from dry dust slipping down the slope, they would likely be dark, based on the dark tones of dust freshly disturbed by rover tracks, dust devils and fresh craters on Mars.

Mars Global Surveyor has discovered tens of thousands of gullies on slopes inside craters and other depressions on Mars. Most gullies are at latitudes of 30 degrees or higher. Malin and his team first reported the discovery of the gullies in 2000. To look for changes that might indicate present-day flow of water, his camera team repeatedly imaged hundreds of the sites. One pair of images showed a gully that appeared after mid-2002. That site was on a sand dune, and the gully-cutting process was interpreted as a dry flow of sand.

Today's announcement is the first to reveal newly deposited material apparently carried by fluids after earlier imaging of the same gullies. The two sites are inside craters in the Terra Sirenum and the Centauri Montes regions of southern Mars.

"These fresh deposits suggest that at some places and times on present-day Mars, liquid water is emerging from beneath the ground and briefly flowing down the slopes. This possibility raises questions about how the water would stay melted below ground, how widespread it might be, and whether there's a below-ground wet habitat conducive to life. Future missions may provide the answers," said Malin.

Besides looking for changes in gullies, the orbiter's camera team assessed the rate at which new impact craters appear. The camera photographed approximately 98 percent of Mars in 1999 and approximately 30 percent of the planet was photographed again in 2006. The newer images show 20 fresh impact craters, ranging in diameter from 2 meters (7 feet) to 148 meters (486 feet) that were not present approximately seven years earlier. These results have important implications for determining the ages of features on the surface of Mars. These results also approximately match predictions and imply that Martian terrain with few craters is truly young.

Mars Global Surveyor began orbiting Mars in 1997. The spacecraft is responsible for many important discoveries. NASA has not heard from the spacecraft since early November. Attempts to contact it continue. Its unprecedented longevity has allowed monitoring Mars for over several years past its projected lifetime.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, manages the Mars Global Surveyor mission for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2006-145

(http://www.nasa.gov/)

[shocker1]

http://www.foxnews.com/images/root_images/120606_mars_water3.jpg
http://www.foxnews.com/images/244548/0_61_mars_water_2.jpg

http://www.foxnews.com/images/244548/0_22_mars_water_1.jpg

[Paul in Saudi2]

The story of the year and for some reason it is not even 'above the fold' in most newspapers. This is the news we have been waiting for for years.

[Durandal]

I was listening to this the other day thinking "I'll be damned" "to bad the Iraq commission report came out today shedding no new light on anything, but this...this is wonderful".

[Freedom06]

I read a very interesting little aside about why the martian atmosphere is so close to the triple point (point at which water is liquid/solid/gas simultaeneously) pressure. It is a feedback system so that if the pressure were higher and liquid water widespread CO2 in the atmosphere would react with the martian rocks and form carbonates- taking the CO2 out of the atmosphere and reducing the atmosphere back to the triple-point again.....

There are many examples of this kind of feedback mechanism on earth were geological processes combined with biology serve to maintain a natural equilibrium... the carbon cycle being one, which over geological timescales has prevented the Earth from freezing completely over..it has to do with tiny creatures in the sea, and ice covering the poles changing the Earths' reflectivity bla bla bla..

[Lazy Lob]

but I love that sort 'o bla bla bla.....................

[Freedom06]

but I love that sort 'o bla bla bla.....................

Right you asked for it: if the earth cools down and ice begins to cover a large proportion of the oceans then the uptake of CO2 by organisms in the ocean (that use it to form their carbonate shells) will lessen-meaning more CO2 in the atmosphere..the earth will heat up again and melt the ice..otherwise what you get is a runaway freezing effect-more ice on the poles means more sunlight reflected, means the colder it gets etc...

There is another effect for if the earth heats up but i can't remember that one..p-)

bla bla bla

[Lazy Lob]

I’m sorry but I’m cradling my 3rd single malt in my hairy mitts. But what you’re talking about is a very nice balancing act by nature that may bring us back from the brink on the CO2 front. Or is this the whiskey talking?

BTW ht eceiling’s beginning to spin

[Freedom06]

I’m sorry but I’m cradling my 3rd single malt in my hairy mitts. But what you’re talking about is a very nice balancing act by nature that may bring us back from the brink on the CO2 front. Or is this the whiskey talking?

BTW ht eceiling’s beginning to spin

Unfortunately for us this CO2 cycle works over geological timescales*..:-(
So we're fvcked..
Pour a tumbler or three for me please, I'm feeling a bit dry myself...

* the warming up part anyway bla bla bla which i can't remember blablabla

[Lazy Lob]

Unfortunately for us this CO2 cycle works over geological timescales*..:-(
So we're fvcked..
Pour a tumbler or three for me please, I'm feeling a bit dry myself...


I can't. Some git p-) expropriated my virtual pub from me. I’m going to have to start MP.net’s private gentlmen’s drinking establishment so I can imbibe with other virtual drunks.

[Freedom06]

I can't. Some git p-) expropriated my virtual pub from me. I’m going to have to start MP.net’s private gentlmen’s drinking establishment so I can imbibe with other virtual drunks.

No worries I just nipped out and got myself a pack of Stella instead.. already on the 2'nd-it is the End of the World after all.. :-(

[Paul in Saudi2]

Here is a photo that is a little clearer. Frankly, I do not see what all the excitement is about.