Water still flowing on Mars!

[laurentius]

NASA Images Suggest Water Still Flows in Brief Spurts on Mars

12.06.06 -- 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 Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program, Washington.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars/main/index.html

Briefings on Nasa tv at the moment.

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

http://www.nasa.gov/55644main_NASATV_Windows.asx

[SlowwHand]

Cool. This will be like the suburbs of the moon.

[Proteus_MST]

Cool

Who knows, maybe there are even still chances to find Microbes on the Mars

[DaShi]

Oh, bloody ****! I knew I forgot to turn that off.

[Spec]

Cant you do anything right?!

Spec.

[Tattila the Hun]

And it's the damn dry season, too... You've just set back the terraforming efforts by couple of centuries. Way to go.

[DaShi]

The bill this month is going to be terrible.

[laurentius]

I wonder if that water has an iron taste to it.

[Lancer]

What implications for humanity?

[Lord Avalon]

Well, of course there's water. It's a necessary ingredient for Marvin's instant Martian warrior army.

[Winston]

Just what we need, more incontinent planets.

Seriously, this is a spectacular find - and it bodes well for the ever increased interest in further exploration.

[Donegeal]

Holy ****! That is GREAT!!!!

[DRoseDARs]

Originally posted by Lancer
What implications for humanity?

Long-term manned missions to and eventual colonization of Mars are made somewhat easier if water, especially sub-surface liquid water, is available and accessible at lower latitudes and not just at the poles.

[FrostyBoy]

What's gravity like on Mars?

Could it have just been falling rocks?

[Gatekeeper]

If there's liquid water on Mars below the surface, what's keeping it in a liquid state?

It's my understanding that the Red Planet doesn't get very warm, even at the equator. Then you have to factor in the fact that there's very little atmospheric pressure because, well, there isn't much of an atmosphere, at least by Earth standards. Geologically, Mars is supposed to be dead — there are no active tectonic plates, no active volcanoes, probably no "marsquakes" and there's no magnetic field.

Yet there must be a heat reservoir somewhere below the surface keeping this water, assuming it's there, in liquid form. Or perhaps pressure is great enough at a certain depth to keep the water liquid?

Hmm. Well, at any rate, this is fascinating news. Perhaps the Red Planet isn't as geologically dead as some would believe.

Gatekeeper