Has Liquid Water Been Detected On Mars?

[Antaletriangle]

http://www.universetoday.com/2009/02...ected-on-mars/
February 18th, 2009



Growing water droplets on Phoenix's legs? (NASA)

Liquid water may have been discovered by the late Phoenix Mars Lander. This astonishing (and controversial) claim comes from some very intriguing images of the lander's leg shortly after Phoenix landed on the Red Planet last year. The series of black and white images appear to show droplets of water hanging off the robot's bodywork in the shade; it seems possible that the water droplets were splashed from the surface during Phoenix's rocket-assisted landing. Far from being static blobs, they appear to grow, much like water droplets here on Earth as water vapour is absorbed from the atmosphere.

But wait a minute, isn't the Martian atmosphere too thin and too cold to accommodate liquid water? That's where the perchlorate comes in…

If liquid water has been found to exist on the surface of Mars, there will be huge implications for our understanding of the planet. Most tantalizingly, liquid water, on or near the planet's surface, could aid the survival of microbial life, reinvigorating the search for extraterrestrial life on out interplanetary neighbour. But on a planet where the atmospheric pressure is 100 times less than on Earth, and temperatures reached a maximum of -20° Celcius during the Phoenix mission, why isn't this "liquid water" candidate frozen?

The perchlorate discovery in the Martian soil was announced by the Phoenix team in August 2008, after an explosion of intense Internet conjecture caused by the "potential for life" announcement by an Aviation Week article days earlier. It turned out that the Phoenix instrumentation had found quantities of a toxic chemical called perchlorate known to be a hindrance to life as we know it. Although follow-up reports were slightly more positive about the presence of the chemical (a possible energy source for microbial life), the mood was fairly sombre. On a planet as unforgiving as Mars, any bad news is a severe knock for the hope of finding life.

However, regardless of perchlorate's toxic effects on life, it may be helping out another one of life's resources to stay in liquid form. If perchlorate is dissolved in significant quantities, water could remain as a liquid down to temperatures as low as -70°C. So could it be that the dissolved perchlorate salt is acting as a very impressive anti-freeze?

Nilton Renno from the University of Michigan and Phoenix team member, thinks it could be. "According to my calculations, you can have liquid saline solutions just below the surface almost anywhere on Mars," he said.

Renno's team carried out a series of laboratory experiments and found that the lander's thrusters would have melted the top millimetre of ice in the regolith. The resulting water droplets may have been splashed onto the landers leg. If the concentration of perchlorate was high enough, the water could have remained in a liquid state during the Mars daytime. As time progressed, atmospheric water vapour may have been absorbed, hence the growing and shifting blobs of liquid on the leg. There is also the possibility that the droplets were splashed from pools of perchlorate-rich water already in a liquid state on the surface.

However, not everyone is convinced. Fellow Phoenix team member Michael Hecht from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, thinks that the photographs actually show water ice, not liquid water. The "frost" changed shape as vapour from the air coalesced and froze to the leg. Renno points out that this is unlikely as any ice on the leg would be more likely to sublime, rather than grow, but Hecht believes this could happen if the leg was colder than its surroundings.

Renno's team will be continuing tests on samples of perchlorate-rich water under Mars-like conditions for the next few months to understand the dynamics of water under these extreme conditions. What makes this even more interesting is that some microbial life on Earth has the ability to survive in very salty fluids, perhaps microbial alien life on Mars evolved in a similar environment where there were pools of liquid water maintained at extremely low temperatures by high concentrations of perchlorate salt…

Source: New Scientist

Maybe one of the local's was caught short..

[Jack]

Weather balloon

[Dantheman62]

Swamp gas condensation

[Jack]

Originally Posted by Dantheman62

Swamp gas condensation

[gatestar]

Here is a pretty convincing pic of water on mars...I found this..

(I don't remember how to post a pic so here is a link)

http://img19.imageshack.us/my.php?im...evp2557bm1.jpg

And these appear to be growing!
http://img214.imageshack.us/my.php?i...growingji4.jpg


I believe that there is not only water on MARS but also living things.

[777 The Great Work]

Why would't there be water on Mars.The four elements are universal.They do not exsist seperate from the other.They can't.Earth Water Air and Fire.

Each kingdom builds upon the next.

[777 The Great Work]

[Dantheman62]

Here's another thread with some cool pics gatestar!... http://projectavalon.net/forum/showt...t=11005&page=2

[sunlite28]

i love that someone was caught short hee hee! i do believe that mars was ahead of the earth in the evolution stakes along while back, it's problem, too far from the sun

love the sun

[Humble Janitor]

Those indeed look like water droplets.

C'mon, quit feeding us bits and pieces and give us the truth!

The truth? You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!

Oh, but we can!

[KathyT]

Originally Posted by Antaletriangle

http://www.universetoday.com/2009/02...ected-on-mars/
February 18th, 2009



Growing water droplets on Phoenix's legs? (NASA)

And it could be rain.
There are many Mars photos showing ice caps on the poles, so there is water on Mars. If you have even been in arid places (sand/rocky soil) where it rains quickly and then in two minutes it's blazing sun... you could imagine it raining on Mars.