Images Suggest 'Recent' Ice on Mars Sea

The ice, if it turns out to be ice, would fit with assertions that bacteria continue to live on Mars.

http://www.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/23/science/space/23mars.html&OQ=hpQ26exQ3D1109221200Q26enQ3D8ea33a8a71a5c99eQ26eiQ3D5094Q26partnerQ3Dhomepage&OP=4e5492e/3Q3DHy3aipCQ27ii6(3(//U3/(3(13CpQ51H8pH3CMQ2ApH3(1Q25Q2AQ27CWb6Q25}

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I hope it turns out that way, since this would be very significant. I've never seen that picture before either, so that's pretty cool to.

This may be a little off the thread subject, but why are NASA and the ESA, and many other scientists as well, focusing so much on finding water and ice on Mars, when we know that Jupiter's moon Europa is completely covered with ice, and may even have a vast ocean under the ice sheet; where there's water, there must be life... ? Just a thought.

It would be important to actually find evidence of ice and even water on Mars though, since future NASA missions there could benefit from this vital resource.

Alex

Mars is closer, so it cheaper and easier to access than Europa. I mean Europa is about 1280 million kilometers farther away from Earth than Mars.

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<a href="http://www.brainsmashr.com"><img src="http://www.brainsmashr.com/signature.gif"><img src="http://brainsmashr.com/boinc/counter_big.php?id=305369&amp;project=seti&amp;ctx=white&amp;cva=red&amp;cbo=white&amp;cbg=black&amp;linethickness=2"></a>

> Mars is closer, so it cheaper and easier to access than Europa. I mean Europa
> is about 1280 million kilometers farther away from Earth than Mars.
>
>

That makes sense, but I mean, we sent the Cassini craft to Saturn, and it's a lot further away that Jupiter is.

Why not design some cheap but well made probes to explore Europa with half of the money we that spend on Mars and some other projects. The results of finding life under Europas ice I think would be rewarding.

Alex

Also consider that Mars is a much more suitable location to send colonists. Even if it is some way into the future, it will be significantly sooner than when we are ready to send colonists to Europa or somewhere similar.

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Kolch - Crunching for the BOINC@Australia team since July 2004.
Search for your own intelligence...

> Why not design some cheap but well made probes to explore Europa with half of
> the money we that spend on Mars and some other projects. The results of
> finding life under Europas ice I think would be rewarding.

You answered your own question. We sent Cassini to Europa.

Personally, I'd be more interested in finding fossils on Mars than brine shrimp living around a volcano spout on Europa....and I'm not sure it can support life anyway.

Yes I know there is life on Earth that exists without sunlight, but I believe they evolved to that level over millions of years rather than being "born" that way.

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<a href="http://www.brainsmashr.com"><img src="http://www.brainsmashr.com/signature.gif"><img src="http://brainsmashr.com/boinc/counter_big.php?id=305369&amp;project=seti&amp;ctx=white&amp;cva=red&amp;cbo=white&amp;cbg=black&amp;linethickness=2"></a>

http://www.nytimes.com/auth/login?.....

Paul, please!!

if you write this exorbitant links, the forum becomes (nearly) unreadable.
You have to scroll right and back left to read all the paragraphs.

Let me introduce you to a very useful site to avoid this:

tinyurl.com

Your link is here: http://tinyurl.com/5f2aj.

Isn't that cute? (and even a method to put that much pictures in a sig ;)

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Gruesse vom Saenger

For questions about Boinc look in the BOINC-Wiki

Saenger,

> Paul, please!!

Had I known any other way to provide that url, I would certainly have considered it.

All I knew was that it was too long to work in the '<a href="">[/url]' configuration, and had no other knowledge of how to present it other than to just paste it in the thread.

I have a fairly large moniter and don't often have to resort to scrolling from side to side because of the formatting I use, but if you're trying to read this on a PDA it would be much different.

I'm not averse to trying to remember to use this tinyurl.com option, thanks for pointing me towards the site. Heck, I'd edit the original post if I could....


Someone else might like the signature feature too, ....me, I don't do signatures.....

I think signatures are redundant, (aren't there stat pages elsewhere?), ....I think it's a self centered waste of bandwidth and just makes everything slower than it needs be, ....all for the sake of showing off some personal stats.

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> Also consider that Mars is a much more suitable location to send colonists.
> Even if it is some way into the future, it will be significantly sooner than
> when we are ready to send colonists to Europa or somewhere similar.

I just thought that if NASA wanted to find more evolved life, that Europas water might be a more fertile environment for this.

> > Why not design some cheap but well made probes to explore Europa with
> half of
> > the money we that spend on Mars and some other projects. The results of
> > finding life under Europas ice I think would be rewarding.
>
> You answered your own question. We sent Cassini to Europa.
>
> Personally, I'd be more interested in finding fossils on Mars than brine
> shrimp living around a volcano spout on Europa....and I'm not sure it can
> support life anyway.
>
> Yes I know there is life on Earth that exists without sunlight, but I believe
> they evolved to that level over millions of years rather than being "born"
> that way.
>

It would be more fun to find fossils on Mars, I agree. Maybe we would find something more than shrimp on Europa though.