This view from NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows bedrock within a stratigraphic layer informally named "Lyell." -- Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell University
Posted on 02/23/2008 12:11:53 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Like salt used as a preservative, high concentrations of dissolved minerals in the wet, early-Mars environment known from discoveries by NASA's Opportunity rover may have thwarted any microbes from developing or surviving. "Not all water is fit to drink," said Andrew Knoll, a member of the rover science team who is a biologist at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass... "At first, we focused on acidity, because the environment would have been very acidic," Knoll said. "Now, we also appreciate the high salinity of the water when it left behind the minerals Opportunity found. This tightens the noose on the possibility of life." Conditions may have been more hospitable earlier, with water less briny, but later conditions at Meridiani and elsewhere on the surface of Mars appear to have been less hospitable, Knoll said. "Life at the Martian surface would have been very challenging for the last 4 billion years. The best hopes for a story of life on Mars are at environments we haven't studied yet -- older ones, subsurface ones," he said. NASA's current rovers and orbiters at Mars pursue the agency's "follow the water" theme for Mars exploration. They decipher the roles and fate of water on a planet whose most striking difference from Earth is a scarcity of water. "Our next missions, Phoenix and Mars Science Laboratory, mark a transition from water to habitability -- assessing whether sites where there's been water have had conditions suited to life," said Charles Elachi, director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "Where conditions were habitable, later missions may look for evidence of life."
(Excerpt) Read more at marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov ...
This view from NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows bedrock within a stratigraphic layer informally named "Lyell." -- Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell University
Unpopulated Mars Already In Need Of Landfill
The Therapist | 5-06-05 | The Therapist
Posted on 05/08/2005 10:53:15 AM EDT by The Therapist
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1398999/posts
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Water was positive on Mars several years ago. What is the holdup?
"Not all water is fit to drink," said Andrew Knoll, a member of the rover science team who is a biologist at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass...and...
...the roles and fate of water on a planet whose most striking difference from Earth is a scarcity of water.Mars has water, but Mars has very little atmosphere. Liquid water can't exist except during transitory events (such as impact).
We are not seaweed to be dragged back and forth with every bit of opinion emanating from wherever. Mars has water and that was the major thing to wait for before designing the permanent Mars settlement. Where is the plan? In Russia? yes, Russia.
NASA to Announce ‘Significant Findings’ of Water on Mars Tuesday!
Space DOT com | 3-1-04 | Robert Roy Britt Senior Science Writer
Posted on 03/01/2004 5:08:45 PM EST by vannrox
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1088571/posts
46 posted on 03/01/2004 8:22:28 PM EST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1088571/posts?page=46#46
Salty Sea Covered Part of Mars: ‘Excellent’ Site to Search for Past Life
Space.com | 3/23/04 | Robert Roy Britt
Posted on 03/23/2004 2:08:10 PM EST by ZGuy
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1103784/posts
Water Ice In Crater At Martian North Pole
European Space Agency | July 28, 2005 | ESA
Posted on 07/29/2005 3:39:05 PM EDT by Frank_Discussion
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1453368/posts
Rovers Find Evidence Mars Was Once Hostile
AP on Yahoo | 12/5/05 | Alicia Chang - ap
Posted on 12/05/2005 8:59:30 PM EST by NormsRevenge
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1534629/posts
Mars Rover Spirit Finds Metallic Meteorites
New Scientist | 6-13-2006 | Maggie McGee
Posted on 06/13/2006 6:28:15 PM EDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1648786/posts
Shotgun sequencing finds nanoorganisms
spaceref.com | 12-22-06 | WestVirginiaRebel
Posted on 12/22/2006 10:30:06 PM EST by WestVirginiaRebel
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1757593/posts
Did comets flood Earth’s oceans?
EurekaAlert | 16 June 2004
Posted on 06/16/2004 5:30:59 PM EDT by ckilmer
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1154794/posts
Clandestine comets found in main asteroid belt - Earth oceans origin
newscientist space | 23 March 2006
Posted on 03/24/2006 5:26:05 AM EST by S0122017
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1602203/posts
Apparently we’re lichens to grow on a rock which becomes our whole universe — there’s some water on Mars, but little atmosphere, gravity 38 per cent that of Earth, steady and serious rain of space debris. The Russians couldn’t get to the Moon back when their space program was robust, which it isn’t now. They’ve said, we’re going to the Moon, but they may as well have said, we’re going back in time and stealing the Ark of the Covenant.
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