NASA: Seasonal Water Flows on Mars

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I think you're right about this.

I'm really excited.

So what I'm really curious about is what causes their periodicity. There's not enough water mass for it to be tidal, there's no geologic effect I know of that recurs on such a short scale. They say they have some theories that aren't too exciting, but I hope they've figured it out.
 
We found life on Mars!

Its microscopic tho.

And it's not actully life... more like death... it was alive even before the dinossaurs.

It's dead now. Theres nothing there actually.

Basically this would enforce the theory of evolution as the origin of us to a 99.9% probability.
 
We just need to forget that idea about the 500 years old Human skeleton on Mars or to adjust it to our Human evolution by many millions of years and the idea could work.

So, it will and still be about our ancestors evolving over the millennia on Earth.

I'm not sure what you're saying. Anatomically modern humans appeared around 200,000 years ago. Say, for example, they came from Mars. How, then, do you explain all the less evolved forms of humans in the fossil record on Earth from before then? Identical evolutionary lines couldn't have just happened to spring up on both planets at the same time.
 
I'm not sure what you're saying. Anatomically modern humans appeared around 200,000 years ago. Say, for example, they came from Mars. How, then, do you explain all the less evolved forms of humans in the fossil record on Earth from before then? Identical evolutionary lines couldn't have just happened to spring up on both planets at the same time.
Well, that's why I said many millions of years.
 
The rumors floating around suggest it's something to do with methane. Some have also speculated subsurface water. Either way, I hope it's not just more rocks.
 
We found life on Mars!

Its microscopic tho.

And it's not actully life... more like death... it was alive even before the dinossaurs.

It's dead now. Theres nothing there actually.

Something like that would be of the the most significant scientific discoveries in the history man.
 
Some day in the far future, maybe a President will hold a press conference backed by NASA and announce alien contact.

Unfortunately, by then everyone will laugh it off and assume it's just fancy terminology for rocks and/or methane.
 
So is this some cross promotions with the movie or something? I remember Philae landed on the comet at the same time as when Interstellar came out.
 
So is this some cross promotions with the movie or something? I remember Philae landed on the comet at the same time as when Interstellar came out.

Philae's timeline was estabilished in 1993.
 
Do we though? His Space X stuff seems to be running into so many complications and setbacks.

Has it? They had one of their rockets explode on liftoff recently, but that's all I can think of in terms of major setbacks. And that was the first incident like that they've ever had if I remember correctly.

They've had a few rockets explode when they've attempted to land them after takeoff onto barges, but they've been very honest about the fact that the chances of those early attempts being successful were not great and some failures were to be expected until they master it.
 
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/09/sls-manifest-phobos-mars-2039/

NASA is now say they won''t have a manned Mars mission until 2039 at the earliest. That's another ~25 years away, and that's if everything NASA is currently planning goes smoothly over those ~25 years, and we all know damn well that ain't going to happen.


So sad how underfunded NASA is.

We won't go to Mars this century unless we have another cold war rivalry and the president who vows to take us there dies again. That was just a perfect storm of motivation. What I see happening is the asteroid mining industry takes off and there starts to be space stations for them instead of colonies on planets
 
One rocket exploded this year. One.

Space exploration is littered with the corpses of failed rocket launches.

That one was a commercial flight. Not a demo flight.

That one was enough to damage a reputation and lose contracts. SpaceX was favored over with the congess before the explosion, and after two problematic launches in the last 8 months it doesn't look good for them. For the record Boeing has had 96 flights with 100% success rate in the last 9 years.

Boeing looks more and more like it's going to pass the certificate requirements and get 2 billion backing from the government and that's a huge blow to SpaceX.
 
Only for people who are not interested in actual science and just wants to hear about aliens.

Exactly.

90% of this thread is people bullshitting about how it won't be anything interesting or joking that it will be some relic from a game/film like relays.

Whatever it is I'm sure it will be interesting and hopefully something to do with the current environment on Mars and not just the ancient one.
 
In Elon we trust.
No way the private sector can do that, sorry, I like Space X, and once we establish the technology you definitely want commercial players to enter the business of going to mars, but man, we're far far away from that.
It's NASA or bust, other space agency aren't close to that (though ideally you'd see a multinational corporation on that mission).
 
Not sure if posted but tomorrow's announcement seems to be about this.

Recurring Slope Lineae (RSL) are seasonal flows on warm Martian slopes initially proposed, but not confirmed, to be caused by briny water seeps. Here we report spectral evidence for hydrated salts on RSL slopes from four different RSL locations from the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars on board Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. These results confirm the hypothesis that RSL are due to present-day activity of briny water.
 
Not sure if posted but tomorrow's announcement seems to be about this.
Flowing water would be pretty major news and would dictate the future of Mars exploration for decades to come. Looking for present day life would also become a key goal of new missions. The conditions are still extremely harsh though, I think the previous proposals suggest that briny water may only flow during certain Martian seasons. That said we continue to find new extremes for life on Earth; take this highly relevant article for example (published 2013):

http://www.natureworldnews.com/arti...sub-zero-temperatures-offers-insight-life.htm
 
Read up on the early history of space exploration. It's a continuous disaster akin to Tommy Wiseau's acting career.
Almost only half a century behind state funded space exploration. We really need and international fund for awesome stuff. Private sector can't compete on the big stuff. No individual is rich enough, and there's little chance of profit. The benefit is more cultural and to economies as a whole.
 
Everyone wants the announcement to be aliens but it won't be.


Depends on what you mean about "aliens". Intelligent life is unlikely but micro organism maybe.

I'm hoping it is micro organism just to troll both the people who said there isn't other life in the universe and to troll those expecting little green Martians.
 
Almost only half a century behind state funded space exploration. We really need and international fund for awesome stuff. Private sector can't compete on the big stuff. No individual is rich enough, and there's little chance of profit. The benefit is more cultural and to economies as a whole.

Space X is funding everything through government contracts. And they have delivered on schedule with their plans so far. Of course, the real money is in military space launches, but ULA has a near monopoly thanks to lobbying.
 
I only hope that china's space program will force the USA to fund the NASA better again. But looking at China's goals they are more interested in the more usable aspects of the space.
 
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