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Fuck yeah, Science!





And here I thought the news was that Mars has flowing water. It turns out the news is that it has CHEMISTRY.
 
And here I thought the news was that Mars has flowing water. It turns out the news is that it has CHEMISTRY.

Sorry. I forgot to mention that part when I responded to your post earlier in the thread. The brine certainly seems to indicate chemistry but we need to boots on the ground to check it out!

Curiosity isn't allowed to drive anywhere near this stuff unfortunately. Many microbes survived the decontamination process on Earth and hitched a ride to Mars and it is a contamination risk if it hasn't already infected the area around Mt. Sharp . Let's hope all those little bugs died in the cold vacuum of space.
 
Why don't we put satellites in Mars orbit? That would give us much better imaging for a mission.
 
Why don't we put satellites in Mars orbit? That would give us much better imaging for a mission.

We have a few. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is where we've gotten almost all of these pictures.
 
Sorry. I forgot to mention that part when I responded to your post earlier in the thread. The brine certainly seems to indicate chemistry but we need to boots on the ground to check it out!

Curiosity isn't allowed to drive anywhere near this stuff unfortunately. Many microbes survived the decontamination process on Earth and hitched a ride to Mars and it is a contamination risk if it hasn't already infected the area around Mt. Sharp . Let's hope all those little bugs died in the cold vacuum of space.

I get that we don't want to think there is life on Mars if we were the ones who brought it, but wouldn't the fact that Earth microbes can survive on Mars be a monumental discovery in its own right?
 
I get that we don't want to think there is life on Mars if we were the ones who brought it, but wouldn't the fact that Earth microbes can survive on Mars be a monumental discovery in its own right?

Not really. We know they can. Look up the tardigrade. Those things are unreal.

If we found lifeforms on Mars that resembled those on Earth, we could have a hard time telling where they originated. Is panspermia a real thing or did they travel on a space probe?
 
So if there is life on Mars does that mean it's 6000 years old too? Did God just get some residual splatter from his God brush that ended up on Mars?
 
Sorry. I forgot to mention that part when I responded to your post earlier in the thread. The brine certainly seems to indicate chemistry but we need to boots on the ground to check it out!
While this is the best evidence that liquid water may exist on Mars, they didn't actually find brine or direct evidence of water, they detected what they think are hydrated perchlorate salts that suggests that brine may exist and explain the streaks. There are other possible explanations for those observations and several issues with the streaks that are not consistent with a flowing water hypothesis...such as the source. The big deal is that briny solutions of perchlorate salts are known to support microbes on earth so it's one step closer to that possibility on Mars...but not quite there.

You can read the article here:

http://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2546.epdf?referrer_access_token=Iny-q1lyiH7gaY-58EKAOdRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0PDgo3lQUDL4ARJHnZcnZ5asEMxtKKdaLGQ9Bn30w_pId4Hj6SvNsX6vD8t_zfANHjCgBtV2IpIHLA5WPU6JDS8IC0phY4myn3rJ9KH2NPHZBspYd3BRnngljjc1-jq1dZIDoe1IcAM9jS8_uQPG_4b8FN05TdH1gkVff7x23h3tA%3D%3D&tracking_referrer=www.rsc.org
 
Aren't percholate salts really harmful to humans?
I don't think they are very overtly toxic. They've been used as treatment medications and microbes are known to grow on them pretty well. High exposure over long periods of time might be an issue but not acutely.
 
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