More flowing liquid water on Mars than in California, scientists confirm
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http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/28/us/mars-nasa-announcement/
Potentially life-giving water still flows across the ancient surface of Mars from time to time, NASA scientists said Monday in revealing a potential breakthrough in both the search for life beyond Earth and human hopes to one day travel there.
While the discovery doesn't by itself offer evidence of life on Mars, either past or present, it does boost hopes that the harsh landscape still offers some refuge for microbes to cling to existence.
"The existence of liquid water, even if it is super salty briny water, gives the possibility that if there's life on Mars, that we have a way to describe how it might survive," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA
Can someone explain to me why water is the essential foundation for life? I always felt that was restrictive thinking - but I read way too much sci-fi as a kid.
By DY_nasty Go To PostCan someone explain to me why water is the essential foundation for life? I always felt that was restrictive thinking - but I read way too much sci-fi as a kid.
All life, as we know it, is carbon based. Water has all the ingredients, in the correct format, to bond with carbon to make the the molecules that serve as the basis of life.
Also, it's an extrapolation of conventional thinking: only place in the universe as far as we can confirm that has life also has a fuck load of water on it.
Well yeah we do, you're not wrong about that, we didn't think a lot of life could survive as deep in the ocean as it does but exploration proved that false. And that's why exploration is so pivotal to our understanding of life itself.
By DY_nasty Go To PostJust always seemed like we have a bias in where/how we look for life.
Start with what you know. What would you even be looking for?
By DY_nasty Go To PostJust always seemed like we have a bias in where/how we look for life.
Silicon based life seems to excite scientists for similar reasons, but that kind is still just hypothetical. Carbon based life is all we've seen so far.