Posted on 09/29/2020 3:32:33 PM PDT by amorphous
Three new underground lakes have been detected near the south pole of Mars.
Scientists also confirmed the existence of a fourth lake - the presence of which was hinted at in 2018.
Liquid water is vital for biology, so the finding will be of interest to researchers studying the potential for life elsewhere in the Solar System.
But the lakes are also thought to be extremely salty, which could pose challenges to the survival of any microbial life forms.
Billions of years ago, water flowed in rivers and pooled in lakes on the Martian surface. But Mars has since lost much of its atmosphere, which means water can't stay liquid for long on the surface today.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
"Not only did we confirm the position, extent and strength of the reflector from our 2018 study, but we found three new bright areas," said co-author Elena Pettinelli from Roma Tre University in Italy.
"The main lake is surrounded by smaller bodies of liquid water, but because of the technical characteristics of the radar, and of its distance from the Martian surface, we cannot conclusively determine whether they are interconnected."
Liquid water?!?!?! I never knew it came in that form!
The presence of water makes colonization of Mars much more doable. It could save $billions, vs. transporting the stuff from Earth.
Spaceman, can you see that wet red scree...
Buried lakes of “liquid water” AKA mud.
It’s better than just rock and sand. Not having to supply water for biologic and fuel needs will help a lot in colonization. I hope Trump wins for endless reasons and this is one of them. biden says he won’t mess with NASA, but he’ll almost certainly pull a hussein and crap everything again.
It would serve as a source for the production of LOX needed for a return journey to Earth, too. Nevertheless, I understand the new rover carries an experiment for determining the viability of an alternative means of producing oxygen on Mars.
What about the lack of magnetic field?
Sadly, science is riddled with confirmation bias. Looking for life on Mars is one of the strongest cases of mass confirmation bias I know of. I expect to see future articles refuting that what was detected is actually frozen CO2 like the rest of the ices on Mars.
Surely the science is accurate enough to rule out it being frozen CO2? They sound pretty confident it’s liquid water.
Liquid water, rather than solid water (ice).
Billions of years ago?
I don’t think anyone can say what happened billions of years ago or even if there is any such thing as “billions of years ago.”
The real question is when did time begin?
When did reality begin?
No one but God can answer these questions.
For the last 30 years I have read of new discoveries of water on Mars (under the dust, under the ground, under the ice caps, etc.) that I have grown extremely skeptical of any new discoveries. These “discoveries” result in very expensive and redundant robotic missions to Mars that seem more about financing scientists careers than making real meaningful discoveries. At this point, the only mission I care about is sending a man to Mars. They aren’t going to find anything living there other than that.
How to bring the buried lakes of water to the surface where it is needed:
Make a large circle. Build a tall diving board.
Then cue Michael Moore to run out to make his patented belly flop.
Some droplets will probably reach Deimos and Phobos.
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