Now this is exciting!!!!

[Kärnfysikern]

Water flows on Mars

http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/10/12/5/1

Water could be flowing somewhere on Mars right now and it certainly flowed sometime in the last seven years, according to the latest analysis of images from NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. Michael Malin and colleagues of Malin Space Systems in California claim that images of the Martian surface, taken several years apart, clearly show evidence for liquid water flowing down gullies in the walls of impact craters (Science to be published). This first contemporary observation of liquid water on Mars provides tantalizing evidence that the planet could possibly support life.


Alluvial flow
The search for water on Mars -- and the implications that its discovery would have for the planet’s ability to sustain life -- has long captivated planetary scientists and amateur space enthusiasts alike. While the Martian landscape contains gulley-like structures that could have been made by flowing water, scientists have never seen direct evidence of liquid water on the planet. Indeed, the only water detected on the planet thus far is frozen solid.

Malin’s team studied images of thousands of gullies taken over nine years by the Surveyor’s Mars Orbital Camera and found before-and-after evidence that water has flowed through two gullies within the past few years. When photographed in 2004-05, both gullies contained brightly-coloured streaks with “finger-like” endings (see figure: “Alluvial flow”). These streaks were not present in images taken in 1999 and 2001, which the researchers claim is clear evidence that water flowed down the gullies some time in the intervening years (see figure "Before and after").


Before and after
“The shapes of these deposits are what you would expect to see if the material were carried by flowing water,” said Malin. “They have finger-like branches at the downhill end and [the flow is] easily diverted around small obstacles.”

Malin and co-workers believe that the water wells up from beneath the ground through cracks created by meteor impacts, rather like springs here on Earth. The researchers estimate that the amount of water flowing down one gully was about five to ten swimming pools’ worth. Both gullies were located in Mars’ southern hemisphere at about 37 degrees latitude, where daytime temperatures could go above zero degrees Celsius making liquid water possible. However, the water would also evaporate and freeze as it flows in Mars’ thin atmosphere and often very cold temperatures.

Earlier analyses of images from the Mars Orbital Camera led Malin’s team to suggest that liquid water had flowed on Mars early on its history. “We can now honestly start talking about water flowing on Mars today,” said Philip Christensen of Arizona State University at a press conference at NASA headquarters in Washington, DC. Other scientists, like James Rice, also at Arizona State, are more cautious: “I’m not convinced we’re seeing modern fluid flow”, he said.

If this turn out to be the case this is most defenetly the best news I have read this entire year. It will defenetly push on mars exploration. The odds for microbial life on mars has just increased dramaticly.

Lets hope the finding will be verified Then Il break out the champagne and celebrate.

[Tock]

Won't be long before we start sending people to Mars, and we leave microbes there to begin mixing with whatever life forms are up there. No telling what'll happen then . . .

BTW, not to change the subject, but did you see the news story about the newly discovered single cell animal that's about half an inch in diameter? I read about it in today's Dallas Morning News . . . pretty weird . . .

[Kärnfysikern]

Won't be long before we start sending people to Mars, and we leave microbes there to begin mixing with whatever life forms are up there. No telling what'll happen then . . .

BTW, not to change the subject, but did you see the news story about the newly discovered single cell animal that's about half an inch in diameter? I read about it in today's Dallas Morning News . . . pretty weird . . .

Yeah we defenetly need to be ultra carefull when we go there, and even when we just send probes since there are many organism that can survive a spacetrip on a probe or rover.

Must have missed that, I only read the free newspapers over here, to cheap to buy the good ones got any link?

[Tock]

Thanks to Google, I found it . . . only, here they say it's .75 mm in size, where the Dallas Morning News reported about 1/2". Nevertheless, it's pretty big for a single cell creature . . .



http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1999/...ain43349.shtml

Giant Bacterium Discovered

WASHINGTON
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(AP) A single-celled microbe large enough to be seen with the naked eye has been found by researchers sampling ocean dredgings in the South Atlantic.

The bacterium - as big as the period at the end of this sentence - is the largest ever identified.

The microbe, discovered near Namibia, lives by absorbing sulfur and nitrates, and it swells as the chemicals are stored inside its cell walls, researchers report in a study published Friday in the journal Science.

The biggest of the bacteria is 0.75 millimeter, according to a report by Science.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, who made the discovery, said the microbes form chain-like colonies that tend to glow from the absorbed nitrates.

"They look like a thin string of pearls," said the scientists, who named the new microbe Thiomargarita namibiensis, which means "Sulfur Pearl of Namibia."

"If the largest Thiomargarita was a blue whale," Science said in a statement, "then an ordinary bacterium would be a bit smaller than a newborn mouse."

In this analogy, the largest previously known bacterium "would be about as big as a lion," about 100 times smaller than Thiomargarita, Science reports. The previous record holder was Epulopiscum fishelsoni, a microbe found in the gut of surgeonfish.

Max Planck researchers said the bacteria live in an environment with high levels of hydrogen sulfide, conditions that are toxic to most other forms of life.

The scientists said Thiomargarita is found in great concentrations in Namibian coastal sediments that contain high levels of toxic sulfide.

[Kärnfysikern]

Just goes to show how little we have realy found on our own world. Wherever we look and whatever we do we find new life. In all shapes, forms and places.

Life is truly the most amazing thing.

[Flagg]

What do you think the chances are of actual sentient life being in those Mars oceans? Im not talking about micro cellular life forms, but fish.

[Kärnfysikern]

What do you think the chances are of actual sentient life being in those Mars oceans? Im not talking about micro cellular life forms, but fish.

zero I guess. Doesnt seem like there is any big ammounts.

I think europa would be a better bet for advanced life