BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy NASA finds water on Mars. Again. No, REALLY!

The number of times NASA has made the great discovery of water on Mars is only matched, I think, by the number of times Voyager has left the Solar System.

However in the past the discoveries were, for example, (1) indirect evidence (2) water frozen in the polar caps (3) geochemical evidence. But they now have evidence of surface water, which is able to exist because its salt content lowers the freezing point.

If there is now - not just in the distant past - running water on Mars, it means there is a greater possibility that there is life there.

These long streaks are inferred to have been formed by contemporary flowing water. (NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)

Google has celebrated NASA's discovery with one of its doodles. I had a little laugh at their Evidence of water found on Mars.

Mona, it is a fantastic exciting discovery! Thanks for the link to the doodle.

In addition to the recent report that there is occasionally surface water on Mars, Curiosity has provided evidence of an ancient basin where Mount Sharp now stands.

The Curiosity rover team has published a report on their findings from the rover's explorations. They confirm that between about 3.8 to 3.3 billion years ago, “long-lived streams and lakes . . . [delivered] sediment that slowly built up the lower layers of Mount Sharp.” There are geological strata that dip towards the base of the mountain, indicating the flow of water towards a basin that existed before most of the mountain did.

Ancient Mars was wetter and warmer and had a much thicker atmosphere than it does today. In fact, it more closely resembled Earth. One of the big questions now is what changed it into the arid and almost airless planet that it is now.

There are organisms on Earth called extremophiles. What they all have in common is that they thrive in conditions that you would think impossible, e.g., extreme acidity or high levels of ionizing radiation. Some of them can live in temperatures that are below freezing. An example is a bacterium discovered in 2013, Planococcus halocryophilus OR1 which lives in permanently frozen ground. It's very happy at -15 degrees Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit) and was observed as active and respiring at -25 C (-13 F). The bacterium lives inside veins of salty water. The high salt content keeps the water in the veins from freezing.

The surface water recently discovered on Mars is also able to flow because of its high salt content. (And in some places that get icy and snowy, they put salt on the roads for this reason.)

HA HA.... so, at first I read this as "There are organizations on Earth called extremophiles." And I was imagining a group of people living in these difficult conditions

Yay for Mars having water. I guess??

Hehehe. I don't know of extremophile organizations as such, Deanna, but there are strange extreme sport enthusiasts around. I'd nominate extreme ironing as the most ridiculous. People carry ironing boards to strange places and iron something. Here is an example. Can't imagine carrying an ironing board around (Ouch! There goes my back and shoulder!), trying to drag it up a rock I couldn't climb anyhow (Eek! Knee! Vertigo!) and then ironing something, which I rarely do in good conditions . . . .