Images Suggest Mars Once Had Massive Lake

Orbiter Pictures Provide New Evidence Of Planetary Neighbor's Watery Past

(AP)  New images suggest Mars had a sizable lake on its surface billions of years ago, further evidence that the planet had a watery past.

Images snapped by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter reveal a 30-mile-long canyon where researchers believe water once flowed and apparent beach remnants surrounding a basin.

Dubbed the Shalbatana lake for the valley it was located in, scientists believe it was about the size of Lake Champlain that borders the United States and Canada.

The findings were published in this week's Geophysical Research Letters.

Lead researcher Gaetano Di Achille of the University of Colorado at Boulder estimates the lake formed 3.4 billion years ago, an era of the planet that scientists generally have believed was cold and dry. The lake probably evaporated or froze over, he said.

Cornell University Mars expert Jim Bell called it a neat find, but he said he would like to see other data besides images to support there was a lake.

[xMulveYx]

We can experience abrupt change, but our co2 emissions are definately speeding up the process

[paddyhayes]

"highly unlikely unless copious gaseous components are now frozen but it isn't that cold"

Ever hear of the solar wind? Mars is not protected by a magnetic field as Earth is. It has been stripped of its atmosphere, as the Earth would have been save for the its rather powerful magnetic field. Nobody is suggesting that Mars' atmosphere froze and precipitated. It has literally been blown away, hence the low pressure.

"I mean after all if another planet can go through such abrupt climate changes without the presence of man, then obviously so can the earth."

Nobody is saying the Earth cannot experience abrupt climate change. Such things have clearly happened. Your point is?

[pensacola8-2009]

On Mars, just like on Earth, water is heavier than soil. For that reason, water can still be found in aquifers and old fashion gravity still pulls it deeper into the Martian crust.

Life is more likely to be found in those aquifers. I have personally seen the blind crayfish and blind salamanders in the Earth aquifers and it becomes clear that fossil evidence from Earth mass extinctions seem to suggest that marine life was more resiliant in surviving the extremes of weather and mass extinctions, compared to their terrestrial counterparts.

What we have not seen in Mars yet, is tar pits - just as on Earth in the southern California area. Such a find would suggest abundance of carbon based life forms that existed at one time.

The famous Martian meteor that was found in the Antartic and contained fossilized bacteria with chromosomes spiraling the opposite direction of Earth bound life form chromosomes.

Some feel the best we can hope for is algae in the Martian aquifers to prove life does exist.

Martian weather

[rwsmith29456]

What I like is that they designed a probe to scrape up stuff on Mars and analyse it and it found some white stuff and analyzed it and it can't tell whether or not its water.

[tautomer]

When you figure that atmospheric pressure on Mars is about 6 millibars (6/1000 of that on Earth) it's a fairly moot point. Look at a Water Phase diagram

http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/phase.html#intr2

and you'll see that Water 6 millibars/ 0 deg-C is pretty much right at the triple point (actually just slightly below pressurewise). What that means is that there is very little opportunity that liquid water would exist under these conditions. The dominant phase transition on warming would be sublimation (solid directly to vapor). Unless, it is presumed that Mars had a much higher atmospheric pressure than currently (highly unlikely unless copious gaseous components are now frozen but it isn't that cold), this proposed lake is a bunch of hooey!!!

That's not to say there is no ice, and we do know that the Martian atmosphere is 0.03% water vapor, but liquid lakes, nope!

It is sad to see a once proud scientific institution like NASA grasping at straws after having been surpassed by other Space agencies. NASA is now left to spin fantastic improbable tales of impending Global Doom and Martians to an uncritical, intellectually lazy public in order to justify it's existence.

[debinok1]

To imply that there have been NO changes on Mars for the last 3.4 Billion years is like implying there have been NO changes on earth or any other planet in that same time period. Which we know is false because we have proof that the earth has changed quite a bit in that time, even without human intervention.

[bajajohn1]

Well, the water from those lakes is still on Mars. When it evaporates, Mars atmospheric shields keeps that water in whatever form on Mars in whatever form.

[debinok1]

Amazing this article left out a VERY IMPORTANT statement that was included in the AP article. The original AP article had this to say, though it has since been redacted.

But in the past, lakes on Mars would have provided cozy surface habitats rich in nutrients for such microbes, Hynek said.


"The retreat of the lake apparently was rapid enough to prevent the formation of additional, lower shorelines, Di Achille said. The lake probably either evaporated or froze over with the ice slowly turning to water vapor and disappearing during a {period of abrupt climate change}, according to the study."

Amazing that such a dramatic statement that applies here on earth, where we are also undergoing a {period of abrupt climate change} would be redacted. Especially since it seems to undermind the whole MMGW theory. I mean after all if another planet can go through such abrupt climate changes without the presence of man, then obviously so can the earth. So sad that even Science cannot be reported in an unbiased manner.

[skyk-2009]

You can't be THAT uneducated can you? You HONESTLY don't think that man can not cause Climate change do you? I sit an wonder where you folks in the Radical Right come from... Have you NO ability to think for yourselves... to actually think things through and form an opinion on your own. We KNOW that the Carbon Gases we produce are being put into the AIR... we KNOW that that MASSIVE amount, and it IS massive, HAS to change the natural balance of the Gases in our Air. A 6th grader can figure this out and yet you poor losers continue to hang on to some stupidity that is hard to imagine. You ADD to the Amount of Carbon Gases in the AIR the Earth is going to WARM, that is something you can prove in your garage for crying out loud!!