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Clues to Possible Water Flows on Mars [merged]


Waspie_Dwarf

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NASA Mars Orbiters See Clues to Possible Water Flows

NASA spacecraft orbiting Mars have returned clues for understanding seasonal features that are the strongest indication of possible liquid water that may exist today on the Red Planet.

The features are dark, finger-like markings that advance down some Martian slopes when temperatures rise. The new clues include corresponding seasonal changes in iron minerals on the same slopes and a survey of ground temperatures and other traits at active sites. These support a suggestion that brines with an iron-mineral antifreeze, such as ferric sulfate, may flow seasonally, though there are still other possible explanations.

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(Phys.org) —Martian experts have known since 2011 that mysterious, possibly water-related streaks appear and disappear on the planet's surface. Georgia Institute of Technology Ph.D. candidate Lujendra Ojha discovered them while an undergraduate at the University of Arizona. These features were given the descriptive name of recurring slope lineae (RSL) because of their shape, annual reappearance and occurrence generally on steep slopes such as crater walls. Ojha has been taking a closer look at this phenomenon, searching for minerals that RSL might leave in their wake, to try to understand the nature of these features: water-related or not?

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-02-mars-hard.html#jCp

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If there is water and iron rich minerals, there may be life, microbial anyway.

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Cool. I want to be the first to white water kyack down those little rivers. If they are visible they must be pretty big. I might have to stay in shape until Im 100 or so though. Good way to go out i think :)

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I wonder who`s gonna get the Water rights first on Mars ? And what color will there little plastic bottles be ? :tu:

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Just wondering ; Mars orbiter is not capable of taking clear snapshots of those areas?

Edited by qxcontinuum
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Just wondering ; Mars orbiter is not capable of taking clear snapshots of those areas?

it is, but it will not show them to us.

As with all the other anomalies.... we get zilch on the up close stuff.

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it is, but it will not show them to us.

What cameras do MRO and Mars Odyssey carry? What resolution does this give? What are the best resolution images of these areas released/

I jest of course, I know that you don't know the answers. I know you will do what you always do when asked an even remotely scientific question... run away. Your total ignorance of all things relevant and inability to think rationally and logically on NASA and Mars negates your argument totally.

If NASA aren't releasing the images how do we know these things exist?

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Just wondering ; Mars orbiter is not capable of taking clear snapshots of those areas?

Click on the original article. Those ARE high resolution images. These flows are a foot or two wide and maybe a couple of hundred feet long. We aren't talking rivers here, this is fluid which appears on the surface and flows for a very short distance before disappearing again.

Here is a link to one of the high resolution images which hasn't been released according to Zeta Reticulum: http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/mro/mars-reconnaissance-orbiter-pia17606.html#.UvyOl4Ws_3s

I wonder what Marsian water tastes like.

This is not water, this is brine absolutely filled with minerals. If it isn't actually poisonous it certainly won't taste nice.

Cool. I want to be the first to white water kyack down those little rivers.

That's not going to happen. These are not rivers, they are too small even to constitute a stream (see my answer above). You'd never get a kyack on them.

If they are visible they must be pretty big.

How did you come to that conclusion. MRO's HiRISE camera is capable of resolving fairly small images (I won't say how small as I'm waiting to see if Zeta Reticulum will answer my questions... he never has yet though).

The images in the original article even conveniently give you scale markers so you can judge the size for yourself.

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So far all these years and all these billions NASA has been sending bot to the wrong place when it should have just sent them to where the fish are....lol

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So far all these years and all these billions NASA has been sending bot to the wrong place when it should have just sent them to where the fish are....lol

They would have to be pretty hardy fish to exist in brine which is effectively a chemical soup, which appears on the surface only seasonally and sublimes almost immediately.

If you can design a lander or rover which can land safely on, and then negotiate, the steep side of a crater I'm sure NASA would love to hear from you.

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