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Date: 06 Dec 2006 18:04:43
From: Sam Wormley
Subject: Liquid Water flowed in the last seven years -- on Mars
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Liquid Water flowed in the last seven years -- on Mars
Watch press conference in progress now
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
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Date: 06 Dec 2006 18:10:48
From: Klaatu
Subject: Re: Liquid Water flowed in the last seven years -- on Mars
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Sam Wormley wrote:
> Liquid Water flowed in the last seven years -- on Mars
> Watch press conference in progress now
> http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/dec/HQ_06362_Water_on_Mars.html
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Date: 06 Dec 2006 13:29:04
From: oriel36
Subject: Re: Liquid Water flowed in the last seven years -- on Mars
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Mars is not like the moon,there is seismic arctivity which can affect
surface features just as would be expected when Earthquakes strike on
Earth.
If they are so desperate to find life on Mars then I suppose they will
find it and somehow make the Earth less special.
I guess they are still having problems with Keplerian orbital
geometries for while using terrestial ballistics to get an aircraft
into space is a real technical achievement,the smae cannot be said for
understanding orbital geometries and especially Mars.
No doubt it is a horrible thing to see the efforts of men to send a
satellite to Mars destroyed but I have to deal with the awful
destruction of the great Western astronomers by some of the same guys
who make no attempt to rectify matters.
Somehow being caught up in an era which has a strange affinity for the
novels of H.G Wells be it War of The Worlds or the Time Machine as a
substitute for the intuitive intelligence needed for astronomy puts me
at a loss.The genuine technological achievements of humanity no longer
match the great intuitive insights of Western astronomy hence this
silly propaganda.
People have grown accustomed to excellent documentaries of the
intricate web of life on Earth and these 'life on Mars' things are an
artifact of a different era when they thought they could build a
machine for anything ,including a 'Time Machine'. The next great step
is not more exotic nonsense of publicity driven stunts,the next step is
to link the areas of astronomy,climatology and geology into seamless
meshing systems which retain their own identity.
Sam Wormley wrote:
> Sam Wormley wrote:
> > Sam Wormley wrote:
> >> Liquid Water flowed in the last seven years -- on Mars
> >> Watch press conference in progress now
> >> http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
> >
> >
> > Evidence
> > http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars/main/index.html
>
>
>
> Guy Webster 818-354-6278
>
> Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
> Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
>
> NASA Headquarters, Washington
>
> News Release: 2006-145 Dec. 6, 2006
>
> NASA Images Suggest Water Still Flows in Brief Spurts on Mars
>
> WASHINGTON - NASA photographs have revealed bright new deposits seen in
> two gullies on Mars that suggest water carried sediment through them
> sometime during the past seven years.
>
> "These observations give the strongest evidence to date that water
> still flows occasionally on the surface of Mars," said Dr. Michael
> Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program, Washington.
>
> Liquid water, as opposed to the water ice and water vapor known to
> exist at Mars, is considered necessary for life. The new findings
> heighten intrigue about the potential for microbial life on Mars. The
> Mars Orbiter Camera on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor provided the new
> evidence. The deposits appear in images it took in 2004 and 2005 but
> not in a 1999 image of one site or a 2001 image of the other site.
>
> "The shapes of these deposits are what you would expect to see if the
> material were carried by flowing water," said Dr. Michael Malin of
> Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego. "They have finger-like branches
> at the downhill end and are easily diverted around small obstacles."
> Malin is principal investigator for the camera and lead author of a
> report about the findings published in the journal Science.
>
> The atmosphere of Mars is so thin and the temperature so cold that
> liquid water cannot persist at the surface. It would rapidly evaporate
> or freeze. Researchers propose that water could remain liquid long
> enough, after breaking out from an underground source, to carry debris
> downslope before totally freezing. The two fresh deposits are each
> several hundred meters, or yards, long.
>
> The light tone of the deposits could be from surface frost continuously
> replenished by ice within the body of the deposit. Another possibility
> is a salty crust, which would be a sign of water's effects in
> concentrating the salts. If the deposits had resulted from dry dust
> slipping down the slope, they would likely be dark, based on the dark
> tones of dust freshly disturbed by rover tracks, dust devils and fresh
> craters on Mars.
>
> Mars Global Surveyor has discovered tens of thousands of gullies on
> slopes inside craters and other depressions on Mars. Most gullies are
> at latitudes of 30 degrees or higher. Malin and his team first reported
> the discovery of the gullies in 2000. To look for changes that might
> indicate present-day flow of water, his camera team repeatedly imaged
> hundreds of the sites. One pair of images showed a gully that appeared
> after mid-2002. That site was on a sand dune, and the gully-cutting
> process was interpreted as a dry flow of sand.
>
> Today's announcement is the first to reveal newly deposited
> material apparently carried by fluids after earlier imaging of the same
> gullies. The two sites are inside craters in the Terra Sirenum and the
> Centauri Montes regions of southern Mars.
>
> "These fresh deposits suggest that at some places and times on
> present-day Mars, liquid water is emerging from beneath the ground and
> briefly flowing down the slopes. This possibility raises questions
> about how the water would stay melted below ground, how widespread it
> might be, and whether there's a below-ground wet habitat conducive to
> life. Future missions may provide the answers," said Malin.
>
> Besides looking for changes in gullies, the orbiter's camera team
> assessed the rate at which new impact craters appear. The camera
> photographed approximately 98 percent of Mars in 1999 and approximately
> 30 percent of the planet was photographed again in 2006. The newer
> images show 20 fresh impact craters, ranging in diameter from 2 meters
> (7 feet) to 148 meters (486 feet) that were not present approximately
> seven years earlier. These results have important implications for
> determining the ages of features on the surface of Mars. These results
> also approximately match predictions and imply that Martian terrain
> with few craters is truly young.
>
> Mars Global Surveyor began orbiting Mars in 1997. The spacecraft is
> responsible for many important discoveries. NASA has not heard from the
> spacecraft since early November. Attempts to contact it continue. Its
> unprecedented longevity has allowed monitoring Mars for over several
> years past its projected lifetime.
>
> NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, manages the Mars Global
> Surveyor mission for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
> For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit:
>
> http://www.nasa.gov
>
> -end-
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Date: 06 Dec 2006 18:12:20
From: Sam Wormley
Subject: Re: Liquid Water flowed in the last seven years -- on Mars
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Sam Wormley wrote:
> Liquid Water flowed in the last seven years -- on Mars
> Watch press conference in progress now
> http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
Evidence
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars/main/index.html
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Date: 06 Dec 2006 20:49:01
From: Sam Wormley
Subject: Re: Liquid Water flowed in the last seven years -- on Mars
|
Sam Wormley wrote:
> Sam Wormley wrote:
>> Liquid Water flowed in the last seven years -- on Mars
>> Watch press conference in progress now
>> http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
>
>
> Evidence
> http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars/main/index.html
Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
News Release: 2006-145 Dec. 6, 2006
NASA Images Suggest Water Still Flows in Brief Spurts on Mars
WASHINGTON - NASA photographs have revealed bright new deposits seen in
two gullies on Mars that suggest water carried sediment through them
sometime during the past seven years.
"These observations give the strongest evidence to date that water
still flows occasionally on the surface of Mars," said Dr. Michael
Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program, Washington.
Liquid water, as opposed to the water ice and water vapor known to
exist at Mars, is considered necessary for life. The new findings
heighten intrigue about the potential for microbial life on Mars. The
Mars Orbiter Camera on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor provided the new
evidence. The deposits appear in images it took in 2004 and 2005 but
not in a 1999 image of one site or a 2001 image of the other site.
"The shapes of these deposits are what you would expect to see if the
material were carried by flowing water," said Dr. Michael Malin of
Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego. "They have finger-like branches
at the downhill end and are easily diverted around small obstacles."
Malin is principal investigator for the camera and lead author of a
report about the findings published in the journal Science.
The atmosphere of Mars is so thin and the temperature so cold that
liquid water cannot persist at the surface. It would rapidly evaporate
or freeze. Researchers propose that water could remain liquid long
enough, after breaking out from an underground source, to carry debris
downslope before totally freezing. The two fresh deposits are each
several hundred meters, or yards, long.
The light tone of the deposits could be from surface frost continuously
replenished by ice within the body of the deposit. Another possibility
is a salty crust, which would be a sign of water's effects in
concentrating the salts. If the deposits had resulted from dry dust
slipping down the slope, they would likely be dark, based on the dark
tones of dust freshly disturbed by rover tracks, dust devils and fresh
craters on Mars.
Mars Global Surveyor has discovered tens of thousands of gullies on
slopes inside craters and other depressions on Mars. Most gullies are
at latitudes of 30 degrees or higher. Malin and his team first reported
the discovery of the gullies in 2000. To look for changes that might
indicate present-day flow of water, his camera team repeatedly imaged
hundreds of the sites. One pair of images showed a gully that appeared
after mid-2002. That site was on a sand dune, and the gully-cutting
process was interpreted as a dry flow of sand.
Today's announcement is the first to reveal newly deposited
material apparently carried by fluids after earlier imaging of the same
gullies. The two sites are inside craters in the Terra Sirenum and the
Centauri Montes regions of southern Mars.
"These fresh deposits suggest that at some places and times on
present-day Mars, liquid water is emerging from beneath the ground and
briefly flowing down the slopes. This possibility raises questions
about how the water would stay melted below ground, how widespread it
might be, and whether there's a below-ground wet habitat conducive to
life. Future missions may provide the answers," said Malin.
Besides looking for changes in gullies, the orbiter's camera team
assessed the rate at which new impact craters appear. The camera
photographed approximately 98 percent of Mars in 1999 and approximately
30 percent of the planet was photographed again in 2006. The newer
images show 20 fresh impact craters, ranging in diameter from 2 meters
(7 feet) to 148 meters (486 feet) that were not present approximately
seven years earlier. These results have important implications for
determining the ages of features on the surface of Mars. These results
also approximately match predictions and imply that Martian terrain
with few craters is truly young.
Mars Global Surveyor began orbiting Mars in 1997. The spacecraft is
responsible for many important discoveries. NASA has not heard from the
spacecraft since early November. Attempts to contact it continue. Its
unprecedented longevity has allowed monitoring Mars for over several
years past its projected lifetime.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, manages the Mars Global
Surveyor mission for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov
-end-
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Date: 07 Dec 2006 05:40:23
From:
Subject: Re: Liquid Water flowed in the last seven years -- on Mars
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oriel36 wrote:
> If they are so desperate to find life on Mars then I suppose they will
> find it and somehow make the Earth less special.
I don't think they have a problem with the Earth being special.
It's the October 23, 4004 B.C. crowd whose heart they wish to drive a
stake through. So that *never again* will anyone try to push science
around in the name of religion.
I can relate to that, when it comes to religious authorities trying to
stamp everything out that clashes with blind adherence to dogma. But
when it comes to things like stem cell research, those raising the
questions from the religious quarter are dealing in possibly valid
*ethical* questions.
Throwing out the moral baby with the dogmatic bathwater is a mistake.
John Savard
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Date: 07 Dec 2006 14:30:06
From: oriel36
Subject: Re: Liquid Water flowed in the last seven years -- on Mars
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As a Christian,astronomy is not just praising God,I cannot imagine what
it would be like to not celebrate the great astronomical cycles which
make life,in all its diversity. possible.
My faith is the expansive kind for we can move from the definite to
the infinite without losing a single beat -
http://www.webster.edu/~barrettb/canticle.htm
The celestial arena is too magnificent and too dazzling to waste time
cutting another to pieces,somehow people have lost the approach to that
incredibly dynamic fountain which rewards those who permit the
observations of cyclical celestial motions to dictate a story rather
than force a structure on the cosmos.
jsavard@ecn.ab.ca wrote:
> oriel36 wrote:
> > If they are so desperate to find life on Mars then I suppose they will
> > find it and somehow make the Earth less special.
>
> I don't think they have a problem with the Earth being special.
>
> It's the October 23, 4004 B.C. crowd whose heart they wish to drive a
> stake through. So that *never again* will anyone try to push science
> around in the name of religion.
>
> I can relate to that, when it comes to religious authorities trying to
> stamp everything out that clashes with blind adherence to dogma. But
> when it comes to things like stem cell research, those raising the
> questions from the religious quarter are dealing in possibly valid
> *ethical* questions.
>
> Throwing out the moral baby with the dogmatic bathwater is a mistake.
>
> John Savard
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Date: 07 Dec 2006 13:42:37
From: oriel36
Subject: Re: Liquid Water flowed in the last seven years -- on Mars
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jsavard@ecn.ab.ca wrote:
> oriel36 wrote:
> > If they are so desperate to find life on Mars then I suppose they will
> > find it and somehow make the Earth less special.
>
> I don't think they have a problem with the Earth being special.
>
> It's the October 23, 4004 B.C. crowd whose heart they wish to drive a
> stake through. So that *never again* will anyone try to push science
> around in the name of religion.
>
I know more about the chronologies of Genesis than any person
alive,that is not a meaningless boast but a simply stated fact and
although as a denominational Christian I love the simple faith of
people and count myself among them,there is also these Judaeo-Christian
jewels,such as the chronologies, embedded in the texts which serve many
functions and this requires a slight effort to understand over and
above what denominational Christians practice.
"There would have been a time when ,at a drop of a hat,I would have
launched into the technical aspects of the Genesis chronology which
begins in Genesis 1 with creation of Adam and ends precisely at
Genesis 7 V 11 with the first drop of rain of the flood of Noah -
"In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the
seventeenth day of the month: it was on that day that All the fountains
of the great abyss burst forth, and the floodgates of the sky were
opened. "
http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/genesis/genesis7.htm
I discovered that people , creationist,scientist and reasonably
intelligent Christians, are prepared to ignore that these chronological
structures have a purpose other than to create the shallow arguments of
creationism/evolution as a step to the main science/religion debacle
and to tell you the truth I am not even bothered about it.Like all
great works of creative humanity (Genesis took several hundred years to
reach its final form),it never imposes itself on the reader but as the
saying goes,you only get out of Genesis what you bring to it and it
rewards the reader who can spot little gateways into its structure.For
instance -
The author(s) broke with the formula "then he died " at Enoch who
conveniently happened to live 365 years -
"The whole lifetime of Enoch was three hundred and sixty-five years.
Then Enoch walked with God, and he was no longer here, for God took
him."
http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/genesis/genesis5.htm
In short,you follow the thread for as long as you can manage and then
you see other things unfold in their own time and in their own way.I
came away with the appreciation of how the author(s) protected the
surface narrative from swamping the Spiritual message of the text but
that may be unfair as it does so many things as a unitive whole.
> I can relate to that, when it comes to religious authorities trying to
> stamp everything out that clashes with blind adherence to dogma. But
> when it comes to things like stem cell research, those raising the
> questions from the religious quarter are dealing in possibly valid
> *ethical* questions.
>
> Throwing out the moral baby with the dogmatic bathwater is a mistake.
>
> John Savard
You are brought up to believe religion is one thing and science
something else and can choose to accept or reject what you may feel are
ideologies with different centers of interest and ends.I never accepted
this for that common intuitive intelligence which affirms or rejects
subject matter based on physical considerations is the same for my
faith as it is for my studies into natural phenomena,the fountain of an
expansive view of Christ and Christianity is the same one which links
astronomy with climatology and geology.My faith is that of the Canticle
of the Sun -
http://www.webster.edu/~barrettb/canticle.htm
In an era when it is easy to cut each other to pieces,it would be nice
to see a more expansive view that was lost many centuries ago.
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