A nice blog on the evidence (such as it is) for water on Mars, which is good because it means I don’t have to try writing about it!
I’m not sure it is water. That dark colour suggests to me it might be Guinness…
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has discovered what amounts to the best evidence yet for liquid water on Mars. Let's be clear though, it's not exactly a flowing spring, and you're unlikely to be drinking this stuff fresh out of the ground, but the odds are now much better for extremophilic bacteria surviving on the Red Planet. The results were reported in Science today (I was able to access through University subscriptions, but I am afraid th … Read More
via Well-Bred Insolence
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This entry was posted on August 5, 2011 at 9:40 am and is filed under Astrohype, The Universe and Stuff with tags astrobiology, astronomy, liquid-water, Mars. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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In the Dark 
August 5, 2011 at 10:26 am
If it’s Guiness then this shows the Irish have already been there.
August 5, 2011 at 10:32 am
Yikes, I’d be shot in some places for mispelling “Guinness”.
August 5, 2011 at 10:33 am
Peter – why does wordpress seem to choose random “profile pictures” from my FaceBook account, rather than the most recent one? The Bob Dylan one is over a month old, I’ve used 3-4 others since then.
This is a bigger mystery than what is going on on Mars.
August 5, 2011 at 12:38 pm
I have no idea. Perhaps you should ask someone.
August 8, 2011 at 12:33 pm
I thought you were someone Peter.
August 5, 2011 at 3:08 pm
It is curious that the dark streaks appear to come from only one side, not the other. It looks as if there is a significant slope on the upper left hand side of the image as well. I would have thought that, if it were present, water would have flowed down both sides creating streaks originating from either side of the “valley”. It could be the source of liquid (if that is indeed the root cause) is isolated on one side, or that some geological structure allows it to flow from one side and not the other.
Curiouser and curiouser said somebody or other….
Adrian
August 5, 2011 at 4:05 pm
That thought occurred to me also 🙂
I wondered if it might indicate that the tongues of dark coloured material might have resulted from wind erosion rather than the flow of liquid matter.
It also seems strange that they are that shape, rather than being more “fractal” – it suggests a large viscosity, like treacle.
August 6, 2011 at 2:27 am
Not Guinness, but mineral water. It contains a fair amount of CO2, so would be a bit fizzy. If I had £1 for every news story about the discovery of water on Mars, I’d be able to fund my research, which is looking for evidence of water on Mars……
M
x
August 6, 2011 at 3:18 pm
Veteran newsman Bill Rogers has a take on this story.
http://tradingaswdr.blogspot.com/2011/08/let-it-flow.html
August 6, 2011 at 10:32 pm
As I’ve said before, you’ve got to admire astrobiologists: they’re doing their very best to find their second data point.
August 7, 2011 at 9:21 pm
Who needs a second data point when you’ve got the origin…?
M.
August 8, 2011 at 12:33 pm
But, Monica, not the origin of the origin.
August 8, 2011 at 6:05 pm
True – only cosmologists can claim that.
M
August 9, 2011 at 7:41 am
Monica,
I actually meant the origin of life on our planet. Not the origin of the Universe. Both seem to be equally poorly understood.