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Tag Archives: Mars
New evidence for liquid water on Mars
The possible seasonal rills of running water on Mars……Credit: NASA, JPL Earth has lots of liquid water, like oceans of it – though salty. Why would people be excited by briny water on Mars? However, for those intrepid, dreaming human beings who think of traveling to Mars and one day pitching camp there, the news [...]
Posted in News: Space Exploration Also tagged brine, carbon dioxide, CRISM, exogenous life, liquid water, Mars colonies, MRO, NASA, spectrograph Leave a comment
Mars water: What’s all the fuss?
Seventh in a series of posts inspired by ten topics in ‘Insights of the Decade’ from the December 17, 2010 special issue of Science Magazine The topics are: Inflammation, climatology, tricks of light, alien planets, the microbiome, cell reprogramming, Martian water, the DNA time machine, cosmology and epigenetics. The original articles are now behind a [...]
Posted in Impact: Exogenous Life Also tagged astrobiology, exogenous life, life, origin of life, planet, rovers, solar system, water, water-ice Leave a comment
Biogeology: A deep subject
Way down deep, below the lowest depths of the oceans, below the floor of the seas – in the rock of the ocean crust – there exists a world with life. It’s been known for some time that bacteria can live in rock. According to the research done by Martin Fisk and colleagues at the [...]
Posted in News: Exogenous Life Also tagged Atlantis Massif, bacteria, biogeochemistry, biogeology, Enceladus, Europa, Io, rock life, Titan 1 Comment
Mars rover Spirit: Trapped but contributing to water story
Disturbed soil surrounding the Mars rover Spirit…….Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell A heading for this story could be: Dead Spirit reports from a moist grave. Almost technically correct but too much wordplay. The reality is more prosaic and potentially more important. The issue is water on Mars. Evidence is overwhelming that Mars had, as in two billion years [...]
Posted in News: Exogenous Life Also tagged exogenous life, geology, MER, rover, space exploration, Spirit, subsurface, water Leave a comment
Life on Mars, if it exists, is below the surface
Is there life on Mars? We don’t know yet. If there is, it isn’t very big. In fact, if there’s (still) any life at all, it will be bacteria or something even more primitive and small. Whatever there is, it’s also not likely to be on the surface. That’s not because of the cold; it’s [...]
Posted in News: Exogenous Life Also tagged astrobiology, bacteria, DNA, environment, extremophiles, LUCA, microbes, panspermia, UV 1 Comment
Enceladus has (at least) a sea, possibly life
It’s all but official. New data released from the Cassini spacecraft has confirmed that Enceladus, one of the moons of Saturn, has liquid water – as a sea – underneath its exterior layer of ice. The idea of Enceladus having large bodies of liquid water is not new but thanks to Cassini, the evidence is [...]
Posted in News: Exogenous Life Also tagged ammonia, Cassini, Enceladus, Europa, Moon, rocky core, Saturn, tiger stripes, Titan, water jets Leave a comment
Martian lakes may have lingered – life more likely
Over the past decade (roughly) as more visual and on-site evidence has been gathered, it’s become accepted that Mars had a ‘water era,’ a time when liquid water was relatively common on the surface of the planet. Liquid water is now long-gone from the surface and what didn’t escape into the atmosphere is now trapped [...]
Posted in News: Exogenous Life Also tagged astrobiology, astrogeology, exobiology, exogenous life, Mars lakes, Mars water Leave a comment
Fossil evidence in Mars meteorite revisited, or, IT was LIFE!!!
When the 13,000 year-old Alan Hills (ALH84001) meteorite was first analyzed back in 1996 it caused a sensation. LIFE had existed on Mars!!! The media played the story, of course. Unfortunately, the evidence for fossilized organisms in the meteorite was inconclusive, that is, it could be interpreted in different ways. Most scientists decided that what [...]
Posted in News: Exogenous Life Also tagged ALH84001, bacteria, exogenous life, fossils, life on Mars, NASA Leave a comment
On the Moon or elsewhere: Follow the water
In the detective business, the standard advice is: “Follow the money.” In human space exploration, perhaps somewhat similar advice applies: “Follow the water.” This needs debate, however there are some potent arguments in favor of the notion that human (as differentiated from robotic or probe) exploration of space should go where sources of water are [...]
Posted in Impact: Solar System Also tagged Enceladus, Europa, hydrogen, Moon, moon water, NEOs, oxygen, rocket fuel, space travel, water, water-ice Leave a comment
Off to Mars. Yes and no.