Phoenix lander confirms water in mars, woot!
That’s pretty awesome
They also confirmed liguids on Titan the other day. Enough methane and ethane in one lake to solve all our energy needs for years!
Who says NASA doesn’t pay off?
:-)
It’s true!
Suck it Jesus! Allah! Vishnu! et al…
?
I don’t remember the scriptural reference where water only existed on earth. I’ve only read the Bible and Koran though, maybe you’re confusing them with the Vedas?
There is that implication, since Man is the purpose of existence.
Very timely for me, as I’m in the midst of reading Blue Mars.
Honestly, Rob, was that really worth the effort to create?
Psst it was the Astronomy Pic of the Day for April 1st a few years back
Dammit! I never get to make fun of Rob!
:-)
Mmmmmm… no.
I guess you could have some religious folks who would be upset if some sort of life was found outside of earth, since that is an implication I would think from my own reading of the bible. However, most religious groups, including the Catholic church, have distanced themselves from that stance in recent years. In fact, some UFO believers have pointed to those moves as proof “the truth” will be revealed soon.
Kudos™ to NASA for using their robot Tracker™ to find Lockets™ of water on Mars™, which we all know is in the Galaxy™ known as Milky Way™. Please, let’s keep this on Topic™ and leave the Snickers™ to some other M-Azing™ post.
Goddamn, that’s fucking awesome. Fuck you religious fucktards and you anti-religious fucktards for cheapening it, just revel in the majesty that is reality. You know what? I’m going to go out on a limb and say this: when they cook the soil next week, they’re going to find signs of life. Fuckin’ A, let’s get this century moving, because I have a sneaking suspicion that it might be our last on this planet.
Fuck you, you ignorant dark ages fuckhole.
H.
I’m confused.
I thought that we already knew there was water ice in Mar’s polar ice caps.
I don’t get what is new about this, other than finding it outside of the polar regions.
The lander is in the polar region.
While it was widely believed there was water on Mars, it wasn’t proven. Some scientists thought the ice wasn’t H2O but rather some other frozen liquid.
Since biologists consider the presence of water to be a key requirement for life, it suggests the possibility of either current or past life on Mars, even if only on the microbial level. In theory the Phoenix Lander could find evidence of that as well.
Of course, there are other people who point to what they think is a giant human face and pyramids and think we are missing the big picture when we talk about water and microbial life on Mars. :-)
Thought it was proven…From 2003:
“Scientists have known since the 1970s that the northern cap of Mars is mostly water ice, but until recently indications were that the southern cap was predominantly if not entirely carbon dioxide, commonly referred to as dry ice.”
There are tons more. I was reading about Mars 30 years ago, when I first became interested during the Viking missions in the 70’s.
Doesn’t take away the fact they’re actually “tasting” it now, and there is therefore the benefit of physically holding it. But they’ve known based on orbital spectroscopy for a long time. Scientists “know” the composition of stars light years away without physically sampling them, too. If someone had asked me 1 week ago if there was water ice on Mars I would have said Yes.
What will be fun is if they cook the dirt and stuff grows :)
Bah, they still need to find the secret underground alien installation that creates a proper oxygen atmosphere.
SO, now we are really able to colonize mars… who volunteers first?
AWESOME
and me being to old to go :(