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Subject: Re: __ Mars had Life Sustaining Water -Theologians apoplectic !
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Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2004 03:54:26 -0500
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" Hans Grüber" <hans@gruber.de> wrote in message news:...

Rover Finds Evidence That Mars Had Water

The question of whether the Red Planet was once capable of sustaining

some

form of life has been laid to rest, scientists say.
By Charles Piller
Times Staff Writer

March 3, 2004

The Mars rover Opportunity has discovered that potentially

life-sustaining

waters once soaked the surface of Mars, providing an answer to one of

the

most provocative questions of modern planetary science.

At a news conference Tuesday in Washington, NASA scientists said

analysis

of

rock samples showed that salt-laden sediments were shaped by
percolating

or

flowing water - and may even have been formed by a great Martian sea.

"Opportunity has landed on an area of Mars where liquid water once

drenched

the surface," said Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator of space
science. "This area would have been a good, habitable environment for

some

period of time."

He called the findings "a giant leap" toward determining whether life

may

have existed on Mars during a warmer and wetter time in the now-frigid
planet's past.

Steve Squyres, a Cornell University geologist and chief scientist for

the

mission, said one of the key pieces of evidence was the discovery of

dense

deposits of sulfates - similar to earthly Epsom salts - in an

outcropping

of

bedrock near Opportunity's landing site.

The mineral is typically left behind by receding groundwater or the
evaporation of a salty lake or ocean.

Scientists used a grinding tool to look beneath the surface of the
rock

to

be sure the salty deposits were more than a shallow crust. They then

used

an

instrument called an alpha particle X-ray spectrometer, which can be

used

to

shoot radioactive particles at mineral atoms to determine their mass
and
composition.

The rocks were found to be "full of sulfate salts," up to 40% of the

total

mass of the rocks, Squyres said - "a telltale sign, we believe, of

water."

Squyres said several other findings confirmed their assumptions.

The layered, scarred face of a rock scientists have been studying -
nicknamed El Capitan - could have been shaped by wind or water. But a
striated pattern called crossbedding included concave patterns
typically
caused by the crest lines of underwater ridges.

The rover's panoramic camera and microscopic imager captured a number
of
random, pockmark indentations, each a fraction of an inch long. The

pattern

typically forms when salt crystals grow within rocks sitting in briny

water.

When the crystals later dissolve or erode away, they leave holes like

those

seen on El Capitan.

Pebble-like structures the scientists nicknamed "blueberries,"
embedded

in

the rock like berries in a muffin, could have been formed by volcanic
eruptions or by the violent force of a meteor impact. But scientists
concluded that they were more likely "concretions," structures created

from

mineral deposits emerging from a watery solution inside the rock

formation.

This combination of signs convinced the rover team that water must
have

been

the unifying basis for the rock's characteristics.

"You work so hard on something," said Matt Golombek, a geologist at
the

Jet

Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena who led the site-selection process
and

hit

the jackpot. "You dream about it, but it was almost too much to hope

for."

Scientists are still exploring whether Mars had large standing bodies
of
surface water or if the water bubbled up from underground. They don't

know

if the water was present thousands of years ago or much further back
in

the

planet's history.

But the scientists are certain that large volumes of water shaped the

rocks

at the Opportunity site over a long period.

Although it is too soon to tell if there was ever life on Mars, the

question

of whether the planet was capable of sustaining some form of life has

been

laid to rest, the scientists said.

"This is a significant step in answering the fundamental question 'Are

we

alone in the universe?' " said Roger Launius, former chief historian
at
NASA.

It also represented a crucial triumph for the agency, still reeling
from
last year's Columbia space shuttle disaster. NASA recently refocused
its
work toward what it hopes will be an eventual human voyage to Mars.

"People may look back 10 or 20 years from now and see the [rovers] as

the

beginning of the resurrection of NASA," said Howard McCurdy, a space

science

historian at American University in Washington.

Charles Elachi, director of JPL, which built and operates the two
rovers

now

on Mars, said that if the discovery is a first step to finding life on

other

planets, it could begin an epic shift in human self-perception,

comparable

to when 16th century astronomers determined that the Earth was not the
center of the universe.

The mystery of Martian water dates from the observations of American
astronomer Percival Lowell a century ago, who described Martian
"canals"
amid vegetation and cities. His fanciful conclusions touched off a

furious

debate about the role of water on Earth's planetary neighbor.

For more than four decades, space probes from the former Soviet Union,

the

United States and other nations tried to settle the question -
resulting

in

a cost of tens of billions of dollars and failure in 20 of 36
missions.

But periodic successes slowly chipped away at the daunting target.
Polar
icecaps were discovered in 1965 in a fly-by made by the U.S. space
probe
Mariner 4. In 1971, Mariner 9, the first successful Mars orbiter,
showed
canyons and what looked like dry river beds.

The Odyssey orbiter now circling Mars used infrared cameras to peer
underground - finding vast ice fields beneath the surface. The cameras

also

mapped the presence of hematite, a mineral often formed by water
flows.

Opportunity landed on Mars on Jan. 24. Its twin, Spirit, landed at
Gusev
Crater on the other side of the Red Planet on Jan. 3.

Like most good science, the current rover missions have raised more
questions than they have answered. The rovers cannot date Martian
rocks

or

detect mineral signatures left by living organisms. Nor can they test

the

possibility that liquid water may still exist far beneath the surface.

"What happened to the water? What happened to atmosphere? Why does a

planet

like Mars not seem to hold on to them?" McCurdy asked.

Within a decade, NASA hopes to complete a mission in which a rover

collects

rocks and soil and brings back the samples to begin to answer some of

those

questions, Weiler said.

Today's success is "very gratifying," mission scientist Squyres said.

"On

the other hand, we are just getting started

Laws always have lawmakers.

You think DNA was an accident, or that it was somehow originated "by
design"? Have you not heard of the strong anthropic principal?

Maybe there is MUCH more to reality and the cosmos than meets the eye at
first glance.

Me, I believe that science and religion are two sides of the same coin.

Theologians apoplectic?

Hardly.

Theology does not fall with a universe teaming with life, or even with
intelligent life.

I believe that the lamb of God conception is an image of a universal
constant, and was very likely enacted in the most appropriate way,
everywhere at once and for all time, and in the most appropriate way
imaginable in each and every case.

Surely even nature takes her cue from a higher organizing principal of truth
and justice, and would roll over and submit herself in the presence of her
maker.

You think that God does not walk on sparkling water by starlight?

If indeed we live in a holographic quantum universe, then nothing is
impossible, no matter how improbable it may seem.

Maybe even resurrection is an image of an organic principal or renewal,
taken to the extreme height in human/divine terms?

Laws always have lawmakers.

You think DNA was an accident, or that it was somehow originated "by
design"? Have you not heard of the strong anthropic principal?

Maybe there is MUCH more to reality and the cosmos than meets the eye at
first glance.

Me, I believe that science and religion are two sides of the same coin.

Regards,