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Stu · 2004-03-02 13:10:59

Woo-hoo!! The rocks in the Outcrop were once "drenched in water", and show signs of having been "altered by the presence of liquid water"... the Blueberries are "concretions"... This just gets better and better...! :laugh:

Bill White · 2004-03-02 13:12:27

Oliver Morton has a neat [http://mainlymartian.blogs.com/semijour … racti.html]Mars blog - - good comments also.

Saw a great comment about possible methane in the Mars atmosphere.

Palomar · 2004-03-02 13:26:09

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s … _21]Latest "scoop" from Yahoo! news

*Wet enough for life, but no direct traces of living organisms...

--Cindy

Rxke · 2004-03-02 14:23:11

So... Salty lake or river...
Dried out...
Leaving lotsa salt behind...
And salt attracts H2O...
So still much scope for brine-like stuff?

Or Nevada desert?

JasonF · 2004-03-02 15:08:04

So... Salty lake or river...
Dried out...
Leaving lotsa salt behind...
And salt attracts H2O...
So still much scope for brine-like stuff?
Or Nevada desert?

Sounds like death valley to me. It has salt deposits at the base, that hold water. Kneel down, and you get a wet salty knee. I can just see some astronaut, trying to brush wet salt off his suit.

Rxke · 2004-03-02 15:24:16

I meant Death valley, sorry...

Any exremophiles surviving there? (not *people* i mean, heehee )

DanielCook · 2004-03-02 16:15:02

Have you ever seen a salt mine? Along the coast of Namibia they periodically dam (salty) sea water. As the water evaporates it leaves behind salt, which is then harvested.

These huge pans would be pretty similiar to the proto environment that formed those sediments on Mars (except the soil is more sillicate than ferrous).

During the early stages, before all the water has evaporated, it is also very corrosive.

DanielCook · 2004-03-02 16:51:30

I googled to this site:

[http://amesnews.arc.nasa.gov/releases/2003/03_24AR.html]NASA SCIENTISTS TO DRILL FOR NEW, EXOTIC LIFE NEAR ACIDIC SPANISH RIVER

So it is at least apparent that life can exist in such conditions ...

No wonder they are so eager for sample return now ...

atomoid · 2004-03-02 18:03:59

They do weather, just a lot slower than the rock matrix. there are some heavily weathered examples on the floor of the crater - obviously the rock they weathered out of is long gone....
Well O.K. But why didn't the stems weather as fast as the outcrop, too, if they are made up by the same outcrop material as the stones ? Expecially in this case (It's a really long stem)

If the spherules slightly erode (due to water saturation inside the rock), the dissolved minerals might tend to congregate in the same area and drift away forming a mineralized area that might be the "stalk", being harder than the layered bedrock it was composed from. therefore they wont weather quite as fast as the surrounding material, which weathers unevenly as well, perhaps the stalk is composed of the harder materials in the harder layer ruffle material. but thats quite a precarious and delicate stalk, even in the low Mars gravity, its surprising its so long... Some other (though not as stellar) stalked spherules have a pattern of rock around them that looks similarly odd such as this [http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/rover-i … en-med.jpg]spherule on a stand and [http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … 53M2M1.JPG]another stalk spherule which if you look to the lower left in [http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/rover-i … ug-med.jpg]this other picture of it shows some attachment designs in the "socket" and below it, are some cracking patterns around the spherule in the crack.

Otherwise, [http://www.lyle.org/mars/imagery/1P1314 … 1.JPG.html]The Spherule and the Stalk might merely be a remnant of the layer and only looks tubular from this vantage point (although the shadow does strongly argue for tubularity), however, the stalk does follow the grain of the layer, suggesting it is merely a remnant of the layer, and not some part of the spherule, for example its "feeding tube" or what have you...

nonetheless, its really amazing find, theyd better take a closeup of that thing! too bad the [http://www.lyle.org/mars/imagery/stereo … 6255-P.jpg]lyle.org 3D anaglyph doesnt show it in both eyes...

chaosman · 2004-03-03 04:05:36

Yes, a micrograph would be great. One that shows the junction between sphere and stalk.

Well I doubt that NASA will do it, but I keep my fingers crossed.

SohoBoy · 2004-03-03 05:02:11

well... the news conference was pretty much a one trick pony, and merely served to confirm what most people have been thinking for some time (given the huge number of features seen from orbit and neutron emmision data) that Mars in the past had quantities of water..

What I found interesting was what was not discussed - the nature of the soil and the results from the trench digging - obviously a lot of 'discussion' still going on behind closed doors on that one. I noticed that when one female journalist tried to steer towards present day surface water, all panellists who answered tried to back off from the question... started talking about 'deep down ice'. I think the guys at JPL must still be puzzling over the 'flow structures, 'platiness' and light coloured 'crust' of [http://www.keithlaney.com/OCI/R9.jpg]this as much as I am... though they have the advantage of the (currently) sekrit spectrometry readings. :hm:

chaosman · 2004-03-03 05:13:56

Interesting article on sulfate reducing bacteria under martian conditions:

[http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.ph … =0&thold=0]http://www.astrobio.net/news....thold=0

Palomar · 2004-03-03 10:24:49

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s … ts]Bookies stop taking bets...

*...regarding the "life on Mars" issue.

:laugh:

--Cindy

RobertDyck · 2004-03-03 10:50:23

Woo Hoo! NASA published results from Opportunity's [http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … 8R1_br.jpg]M?ssbauer spectrometer. It shows Jarosite, a mineral one geology professor I have been consulting with had predicted last June. He said it would occur as result of weathering by water in acid soil. I wondered about that since I thought Mars soil was alkaline. This shows he was right. It also helps me with the CIPW analysis of results from Sojourner's APXS instrument. Hopefully we'll get mineral characterization of Mars soil from Spirit and Opportunity soon. (Spectrographs are good!)

Shaun Barrett · 2004-03-04 02:35:27

This new definitive proof that Mars was once very wet is probably a little less than stunning to most of us here. The evidence for past surface water seems overwhelming, at least to me, if you just look at the martian topography.

O.K., so Mars was once very wet. Where does that leave us?
Well, for one thing, we can now put Dr. Nick Hoffman's "White Mars" hypothesis to rest. It's no longer necessary to conjure up frigid scenes of erosion mediated by explosive eruptions of liquid CO2 from rock strata. According to Ockham, and now in accordance with hard evidence, we can look to the simpler medium of good ol' H2O to do the job.

But what about all that olivine? Olivine can't exist for long in the presence of water and yet it's been found in all sorts of places on Mars, including low-lying areas which look like they must surely have been inundated in the past. Is it all just timing? Did the olivine originate in episodes of volcanism which have occurred since the surface water disappeared into space or retreated into underground aquifers?
This is just one of the paradoxes of Mars which makes me think martian geological history is very complicated. We need a reliable timeline and that means cataloging and dating rock samples from all over the surface. If you think that means I want us to launch a Sample Return Mission, you're wrong! We need too many samples from too many locations. One geologist in a suitably equipped methane-powered rover could answer more questions about martian geology in one year than dozens of SRMs spread over decades and costing many billions of dollars. But that's another argument!

But at least the unequivocal discovery that Mars was once very wet will push aside some of the 'ifs, buts and maybes' which have plagued debate about the Red Planet for so long. We now know that Mars could quite easily have given rise to microbial life in its early history - perhaps even earlier than Earth did. Therefore one of the major stumbling blocks to discussion about possible martian life has been removed.
Although most people have very grave doubts that multi-cellular life could have developed on Mars, it's now no longer taboo to raise the subject in polite conversation! It may even allow NASA to look for at least the chemical signatures of past bacterial life in the martian rocks, without fear of ridicule.
This is not something to be sneezed at! I see it as a major breakthrough in the sense that the old 'Mars is sterile and that's that' paradigm is now open to serious debate.

As many of you know, I happen to believe Mars hosts a thriving biosphere of familiar bacteria, probably just below its surface. The Viking scientists, pinning their judgment and their reputations on an instrument since found to be inadequate, decreed they could detect no life on Mars. (The instrument was the Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer, which subsequently failed to detect organic molecules in Antarctic soils known to contain breeding colonies of bacteria! )
Since so many distinguished scientists hung their hats on the 'Sterile Mars' peg, it became professional suicide to argue the contrary view with any degree of seriousness. But most of those scientists are now either retired or dead. I can think of two Viking scientists who are no longer with us: Carl Sagan and Jerry Soffen, and others may also have departed this world. As far as I know, there is only one veteran of the Viking mission team working on the MER missions, Ben Clark.

Maybe 28 years is long enough. Maybe we can forget about embarrassing a bunch of scientific elder statesmen who may have made a mistake in 1976. Maybe we can now start looking for evidence of life, both past and present, without rocking the boat(?).
???

Just thought I'd share these musings with you. Does anyone feel the same way or am I all alone in this canoe I'm paddling?

dicktice · 2004-03-04 08:36:04

Yes, yes, and I've even got my own Canadian canoe! :up:

GraemeSkinner · 2004-03-04 08:54:23

Maybe 28 years is long enough. Maybe we can forget about embarrassing a bunch of scientific elder statesmen who may have made a mistake in 1976. Maybe we can now start looking for evidence of life, both past and present, without rocking the boat(?).

Any scientist can only be as good or accurate as the data they're working from. So i'd think none of them would be embarrassed by any data that comes to light from modern probes that contradicts their theories.
I hope that they will start looking for biological evidence whether current or in fossil form - whatever - as long as they keep looking and sending back data that I can sit a gaze at for a while.
Not much of a canoe person myself, that type of water transport has never appealed since I watched Deliverence.

rgcarnes · 2004-03-04 09:05:40

Well said, Shaun.

For the sake of reality and truth I hope we can soon find a bigger sharper stake to drive into the heart of the blood sucking "professional suicide" beast as I still detect signs of it twitching amoung some of the younger crew.

rgcarnes · 2004-03-04 09:13:50

GraemeSkinner

I agree with you, except that Gilbert Levine's Viking life detection method WAS a modern probe with great sensitivity and elegance.

GraemeSkinner · 2004-03-04 10:17:53

I agree with you, except that Gilbert Levine's Viking life detection method WAS a modern probe with great sensitivity and elegance.

Morden for its time, I think the Viking lander was a vital part in the exploration of Mars, it gave us a building block for future exploration that we are seeing now.

chaosman · 2004-03-04 10:48:54

To Shaun Barrett:

You spoke directly from the bottom of my soul.

I feel some old paradigms are going to fall in the not so far future.

dickbill · 2004-03-04 13:10:38

If in addition Mars express discovers underground liquid water today, the issue of life, past or present, is going to be the next problem to resolve.
Personnaly I think there is no life today, through I don't reject early prebiotic attempts or even some primitive precellelular organisms, subsequently swept by some event a long time ago in the martian past.
It might be very hard to find these fossils if they didn't had time to spread on the surface, which, we said it before, is in contradiction with the description of the meteorite ALH84001 as containing nanobacteria fossils.
Think about it: if this early life was very local in a tiny spot on MArs and so very rare ( exterminated before it could spread) then it is unlikely that a meteorite impactor would send us the right fragment with these very rare fossils, meaning that these things in the meteorite are probably not nanobacteria fossiles, but concretions.
If on the opposite, early martian life had time to spread and an impactor indeed sent us nanobacteria fossils, which is then believable, the consequence is that it "should be easy" to find more of these fossils, since they are widespread....

we talked about that before but it's just for the new members here.

atomoid · 2004-03-04 13:29:06

This new definitive proof that Mars was once very wet is probably a little less than stunning to most of us here. we can now put Dr. Nick Hoffman's "White Mars" hypothesis to rest.
But what about all that olivine? Olivine can't exist for long in the presence of water and yet it's been found in all sorts of places on Mars, including low-lying areas which look like they must surely have been inundated in the past. Is it all just timing? Did the olivine originate in episodes of volcanism which have occurred since the surface water disappeared into space or retreated into underground aquifers?

We now know that Mars could quite easily have given rise to microbial life in its early history - perhaps even earlier than Earth did. It may even allow NASA to look for at least the chemical signatures of past bacterial life in the martian rocks, without fear of ridicule.
As many of you know, I happen to believe Mars hosts a thriving biosphere of familiar bacteria, probably just below its surface.
Does anyone feel the same way or am I all alone in this canoe I'm paddling?

Nice cogent essay, thanks for that, i'm paddling too, although in a kayak getting tossed around by all the musings of life or the lack of it. as such, all of us hopeful paddlers better put on our "life preservers" (sorry, couldnt resist)....i'm so glad the "sterile white Mars (with exploding CO2 reserves)" is dead, i really like Hoffman's devils-advocacy, he really makes you question your assumptions, but to us "life-hopefuls" that was really a depressing concept...
- The olivine: is it new? how is it formed? if its new, like the hematite, it might be mostly in the dust which gets blown around covering rocks and soils, masking the underlying composition of the surface from the orbital sensors (has this possibility been negated?).

If life did exist, i believe it would "try" very hard to become multicellular, but mars might not have been wet and stable long enough to allow such delicacies to evolve. But even with single cell nanomicrobes, it would tend to adapt to the energy source available, probably chemical (sulfur), since surface conditions were probably too harsh without a useful magnetic field. the most conducive conditions for life would be underground, so this bedrock with all its sulfur and layering should have been a real haven for microbes. they should have left some features altered: I think weve already seen evidence of microbial action just below the surface (in the past at least):
- The "termite gallery" appearance of the bedrock to me looks like evidence of microbial mats or globules or other protective secretion structures altering the erodability of areas of the layers. if the microbes come out of spore form to take advantage of changing conditions caused by climate shifts or meteor vulcanism driven heat. we'd could see episodic changes in the layer materials (termite galleries again?). - So the spherules are really are in fact concretions (eureka!), this shows that there was an excess of minerals in the bedrock as conditions changed which microbes would normally figure out a way to take advantage of.

As for current life, im thinking it might not be thriving, but dormant, or might be very slow in its metabolism and so doenst alter its environment as fast as natural erosional forces do, and any released gasses or chemical changes in the soil are rapidly dispersed by natural actions, therefore we might have a hard time sensing it. If it were really thriving im thinking wed be seeing a lot of methane or other chemical signatures in the atmosphere or soils... However, it might be thriving in a few nice places (like Meridiani) and so as the MER trenching operations are disturbing billions of slow-living microbes, anything thay exude would be mixed around in the soil making their tell-tale signs far less obvious to the low-res microscope or spectrometers (why didnt they put a more useful higher-power scope on that thing anyway?).

Rxke · 2004-03-04 13:57:04

(why didnt they put a more useful higher-power scope on that thing anyway?).

Heh. That's a no-brainer: to make the public scream for a follow-up mission with a decent one!

GraemeSkinner · 2004-03-04 14:21:26

It must be difficult though when they're designing these rovers, loads of scientist sitting round shouting... I want... I want... I want...
If you asked each scientist from the Spirit/Opportunity team to design their ideal rover they probably come up with a brilliant rover for their own needs - but not for others. I suppose they have to compromise somewhere, and at least we've got some decent results from them.

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