Researchers have discovered evidence that there's a lot more water on Mars--at least on parts of Mars--than anyone previously thought. Using new technology, scientists examined the water content in meteorites from the planet, and it points to a lot of it in the Martian mantle.
The meteorites they studied are called shergottite meteorites, and they likely broke off from Mars about 2.5 million years ago. Even though the meteorites had a different elemental composition, the amount of water was consistent, bolstering the idea that they're representative of the planet as a whole.
We've actually known there's been water on the surface for a while, but how it got there was a little hazier. Now we have an idea: volcanoes sent it out. As Carnegie Institution For Science investigator Erik Hauri, who performed the analysis, explained in a statement:
Water under the mantle also clues us in a bit to the planet's geological history, suggesting H2O played a role in its formation.
So how much water are we talking about? At least in the samples, a lot of it. On average, a little more than Earth has. The samples suggested parts of Mars have between 70 and 300 parts per million water, while Earth's mantle averages about 50 to 300 parts per million. Two questions it raises: Could Mars ever have sustained life in the past, and would this make it easier to do in the future?
Five amazing, clean technologies that will set us free, in this month's energy-focused issue. Also: how to build a better bomb detector, the robotic toys that are raising your children, a human catapult, the world's smallest arcade, and much more.


Online Content Director: Suzanne LaBarre | Email
Senior Editor: Paul Adams | Email
Associate Editor: Dan Nosowitz | Email
Assistant Editor: Colin Lecher | Email
Assistant Editor: Rose Pastore | Email
Contributing Writers:
Rebecca Boyle | Email
Kelsey D. Atherton | Email
Francie Diep | Email
Shaunacy Ferro | Email
if volcanoes brings water to surface, water has been under surface
and after it moves to the surface, it goes again under surface
so the Mars's soil is more different from Earth, that could hold water more than earth
and:
that water should bring to the surface in a very short time( to remain before turning back under surface again)
so:
it needs to be done not only with a few volcanoes, because a single volcano only covering a small area
also:
the volcanic activities should be in a great size, to have enough power to vehicle that amount of water in short time
SO: you should also find a sign that planet exploded some times!
The more things change the more they stay the same, it is hilarious how sonner or later the scientist catch up with what is being said on the blogs and to relativity.
If only they looked at earth history before they have so many outrageous suggestions before maybe they wouldn't have looked so stupid. Earth has a record of geological activity, a simple confinement of gas will build up pressure enough for water to form, on earth you find that in two other places underground or under an ice sheet. This is something even the stupidest scientist should have acknowledged yet me saying this for the past 15 years didn't change anyone's mind, now they are saying this ?#$% getting published credit for it. Do you know how this feels for someone who is right to go through so much stupidity, I don't think you do, the thought of repeating yourself for over 15 years while others are putting you down. Now it is going mainstream and people are actually getting credit for something that was so ridiculously simple back 15 years ago and even getting Nobel prizes for their ground breaking work, what bs. Anyone mentioning anything about the possibility for life on another moon before voyager would have been blasted for such silly thought, yet now in our outer solar system that is where they think is the greatest chance of finding life on even on a world with only 11 percent of earth's gravity like Enceladus.
Here is something they will announce twenty years from now that I will tell you it already happened. There is life on Mars, they found microscopic life at the Phoenix Lander site. In fact the traces the Martian meteorite, AH 84001 has similar magnetic crystal properties as TOR-39 microbe found in an south African gold mine, and all the properties of that magnetite was found at the Phoenix Lander and ?Viking sites. See this you tube videos, yea they will sing the same song now but if you're alive 20 thirty years from now it will be a big revelation, and some idiot will get credit for it.....
http://youtu.be/M223QDCMWLY
Ron Bennett
Oh, to one day make a human settlement, community, city on Mars that would be so incredible and fantastic. Eventually, we will get there. I just hope we make this accomplishment in my life time.
.............
Every day is a new day!
Sorry for ranting too much here, it is just frustrating.
Ron Bennett
Ranting is just verbose passion.
All is well and I like your passion! ;)
.............
Every day is a new day!
If it is intelligent life you seek, look not farther than your own solar system. If it is moronic life you seek, look no farther than oneself. I do believe that we will find life on many different bodies of our solar system. Intelligent non-terrestrial life may have even originated around the sun long before we even pond-slime. Who knows? Only pictures and speculations at this point, yet we care not for the life on our own planet.
A lot more, a lot less, a little more, a little less...what's the difference? Is there some "critical limit" that you're looking for? Is there a point at which I'm supposed to say "Wow"?
Wow! What incredible nonsense. First of all there is no way to know if those meteorites are really from Mars. It's all just speculation. Also, How do they know the water didn't get into those rocks from being soaked in rain on earth for millions of years? You can't prove anything by looking at rocks that are here. You want to know if there's water on mars, you need to go there and dig. Stories like this make my blood boil.
why are we even looking for water in the first place,if all we seek is extra-terrestrial life?
why is it assumed that any sort of life WILL need H2O,why not something else?
it seems like we're not looking for life that's already there but are looking for places where we can place HUMAN life. that's why we're looking for water.
What if with great scientific tools of the future, we in the future start noticing on the moon, asteroids, other planets and their moons, elements, of life or left over life from billions years ago, scattered all about?
Unless this life form is currently alive and the environment of which it lives is a place humans can live too, it may have little or no meaning. It could simply mean life exist in the cosmos, abundantly in variety as it does on Earth and most of the cosmos currently is inhospitable for humans to live, of which we already know.
I believe it will be our human technology to create human environments in outer space, they will make space travel possible, not finding a safe place to live or life in another place.
..........................................
See life in all its beautiful colors, and
from different perspectives too!
There is tons of water on Mars, in the form of ice on the surface and under the surface. Here is something NASA won’t tell you, there are also standing bodies of water on Mars in the form of liquid H20. Mars climate varies. It reaches up to 20 degrees celcius in certain spots in the summer months. (the perfect temp for liquid water). Here is something NASA won’t tell you. There is vegetation on Mars. NASA does not want to let you know this, because I suspect the DNA of these plants are similar to that of plants found on earth. Kind of a spit in the face of Darwinian evolution.
Here are pics of vegetation on Mars.
http://mmmgroup2.altervista.org/e-trees.html
NASA has explained away this phenomenon, by saying they are crystalline structures, or dust clouds….but what is interesting the vegetation grows and disappears in relation to the season. (they multiply in the summer and succeed in the winter.
"Here is something (fill in the blank)won’t tell you"
I'm so jealous that ALH always gets the inside info.
Wacko!