Science MULTIPLE 'WATER BODIES' FOUND UNDER SURFACE OF MARS

[SlyPokerDog]

Several liquid bodies have been found under the south pole of Mars, according to a major new study.

The findings give extra credence to previous research that suggested there could be a large saltwater lake underneath the Martian surface, the researchers claim – and also led to them discovering a number of other wet areas.

The findings could be key in the search for alien life on the planet, the researchers note, given life as we know it requires liquid water to survive.


They will also be key to “planetary protection” work that ensures that humanity doesn’t contaminate other planets with life from Earth during missions to explore them.


The researchers call for future work to better examine Mars, its chemistry – and whether there might be any traces of what they call “astrobiological activity”, or alien life.

The discovery was made using MARSIS, or the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding, which is onboard the Mars Express spacecraft sent by the European Space Agency to orbit around Mars.

The instrument sends radar pulses that can penetrate the surface and ice caps of Mars. They can then be measured as they bounce back towards the spacecraft, allowing researchers to delve into the planet without actually touching it.

In 2018, researchers using that instrument announced they had found a vast lake beneath the surface of Mars, hailing it as a major breakthrough in the search for alien life on the planet. But the study was also questioned by experts who wondered whether the scientists had gathered enough detail on the nature of the body to know for sure whether it was a body of liquid water.

In the new study, researchers led by Elena Pettinelli from Roma Tre University used techniques borrowed from Earth satellites to study the lakes beneath Antarctic glaciers.

By doing so, they were able to analyse data from MARSIS that examined a huge array around the body they had found on Mars. That allowed them to confirm that it was liquid.

They were also able to find a number of other patchers, separated from the main body, which together appear to make up a patchwork of various salty lakes.


The data appears to indicate that the bodies are “hypersaline solutions” –a brine in which high concentrations of salt are dissolved in water – which is perhaps the reason they are able to stay liquid despite the very cold conditions of Mars’s south pole.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-...ars-water-bodies-nasa-alien-life-b673519.html

 

[andalusian]

If humanity ever runs out of pickle juice, we now have a backup plan. Neat.

 

[lawai'a]

Several liquid bodies have been found under the south pole of Mars, according to a major new study.

The findings give extra credence to previous research that suggested there could be a large saltwater lake underneath the Martian surface, the researchers claim – and also led to them discovering a number of other wet areas.

The findings could be key in the search for alien life on the planet, the researchers note, given life as we know it requires liquid water to survive.


They will also be key to “planetary protection” work that ensures that humanity doesn’t contaminate other planets with life from Earth during missions to explore them.


The researchers call for future work to better examine Mars, its chemistry – and whether there might be any traces of what they call “astrobiological activity”, or alien life.

The discovery was made using MARSIS, or the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding, which is onboard the Mars Express spacecraft sent by the European Space Agency to orbit around Mars.

The instrument sends radar pulses that can penetrate the surface and ice caps of Mars. They can then be measured as they bounce back towards the spacecraft, allowing researchers to delve into the planet without actually touching it.

In 2018, researchers using that instrument announced they had found a vast lake beneath the surface of Mars, hailing it as a major breakthrough in the search for alien life on the planet. But the study was also questioned by experts who wondered whether the scientists had gathered enough detail on the nature of the body to know for sure whether it was a body of liquid water.

In the new study, researchers led by Elena Pettinelli from Roma Tre University used techniques borrowed from Earth satellites to study the lakes beneath Antarctic glaciers.

By doing so, they were able to analyse data from MARSIS that examined a huge array around the body they had found on Mars. That allowed them to confirm that it was liquid.

They were also able to find a number of other patchers, separated from the main body, which together appear to make up a patchwork of various salty lakes.


The data appears to indicate that the bodies are “hypersaline solutions” –a brine in which high concentrations of salt are dissolved in water – which is perhaps the reason they are able to stay liquid despite the very cold conditions of Mars’s south pole.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-...ars-water-bodies-nasa-alien-life-b673519.html

so now this is Putin's secret bioweapon development lab?

 

[ehizzy3]

Doesn’t it take like a year to reach Mars?

 

[e_blazer]

 

[Lanny]

Several liquid bodies have been found under the south pole of Mars, according to a major new study.

The findings give extra credence to previous research that suggested there could be a large saltwater lake underneath the Martian surface, the researchers claim – and also led to them discovering a number of other wet areas.

The findings could be key in the search for alien life on the planet, the researchers note, given life as we know it requires liquid water to survive.


They will also be key to “planetary protection” work that ensures that humanity doesn’t contaminate other planets with life from Earth during missions to explore them.


The researchers call for future work to better examine Mars, its chemistry – and whether there might be any traces of what they call “astrobiological activity”, or alien life.

The discovery was made using MARSIS, or the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding, which is onboard the Mars Express spacecraft sent by the European Space Agency to orbit around Mars.

The instrument sends radar pulses that can penetrate the surface and ice caps of Mars. They can then be measured as they bounce back towards the spacecraft, allowing researchers to delve into the planet without actually touching it.

In 2018, researchers using that instrument announced they had found a vast lake beneath the surface of Mars, hailing it as a major breakthrough in the search for alien life on the planet. But the study was also questioned by experts who wondered whether the scientists had gathered enough detail on the nature of the body to know for sure whether it was a body of liquid water.

In the new study, researchers led by Elena Pettinelli from Roma Tre University used techniques borrowed from Earth satellites to study the lakes beneath Antarctic glaciers.

By doing so, they were able to analyse data from MARSIS that examined a huge array around the body they had found on Mars. That allowed them to confirm that it was liquid.

They were also able to find a number of other patchers, separated from the main body, which together appear to make up a patchwork of various salty lakes.


The data appears to indicate that the bodies are “hypersaline solutions” –a brine in which high concentrations of salt are dissolved in water – which is perhaps the reason they are able to stay liquid despite the very cold conditions of Mars’s south pole.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-...ars-water-bodies-nasa-alien-life-b673519.html

Not likely.

 

[Shaboid]

Mars As Never Seen Before: ESA’s Mars Express New Global Color Mosaic

To mark 20 years of ESA’s Mars Express, the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) team has produced a new global color mosaic: Mars as never seen before. The mosaic reveals the planet’s surface color and composition in spectacular detail. Darker grey-toned areas of Mars represent grey-black basaltic sands of volcanic origin; lighter patches show clay and sulfate minerals; and the large scar across the planet’s face is Valles Marineris. Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/G. Michael, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

ESA’s Mars
Mars is the second smallest planet in our solar system and the fourth planet from the sun. It is a dusty, cold, desert world with a very thin atmosphere. Iron oxide is prevalent in Mars' surface resulting in its reddish color and its nickname "The Red Planet." Mars' name comes from the Roman god of war.
" data-gt-translate-attributes="[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Mars Express mission has released a color-rich, detailed mosaic of Mars to mark its 20th anniversary, using high-altitude images that reveal unprecedented color variations and the planet’s diverse composition. The mosaic highlights reddish oxidized iron, dark volcanic basaltic sands, and bright areas suggesting the past presence of liquid water. The mission will continue until at least 2026.

A new mosaic of Mars marks 20 years since the launch of ESA’s Mars Express, and reveals the planet’s color and composition in spectacular detail.

The mosaic was created using data from Mars Express’s High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC).


HRSC normally photographs Mars’s surface from an altitude of about 300 km – the closest the spacecraft gets to Mars in its elliptical orbit – with the resulting images covering areas about 50 km across. However, the mosaic presented here uses a slightly different approach. To view the planet more widely, HRSC gathered 90 images at higher altitudes (of 4000 to 10,000 km), thus capturing areas of around 2500 km wide. These images were then put together to form a full global view.

Such large-scale images are typically obtained to observe weather patterns on Mars – but even in the absence of atmospheric phenomena, they offer wonderful views of the planet’s surface.


This image shows an example of the kind of high-altitude HRSC image used to create the global mosaic, taken during HRSC orbit 21 688. The grey terrain comprises data from NASA’s Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, while the HRSC data forms the two colored slices. Martian coordinates are displayed around the discs for geographical context.
Left: A red-green-blue composite showing how the surface looks in visible light. Note the light blue color of the northern and southern limbs, caused by the camera having a shallower view through the Martian atmosphere (which therefore had a stronger influence on the images). Such regions were excluded from the global mosaic.
Right: An infrared-red-green composite. Such unusual views (those including the infrared channel) offer a possible way to examine Mars’ surface reflectivity in various wavelengths, and have also been inspected to detect artifacts or holes in the data comprising the global mosaic. Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/MOLA Science Team, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

A richer color view
This new view highlights variation across Mars’s surface by enhancing local color and contrast.

Thanks to its nine imaging channels, HRSC can visualize Mars not only in three dimensions but also in color. However, the ever-changing opacity of the Martian atmosphere makes it difficult to determine accurate surface colors from orbit. Dust scatters and reflects light, causing colors to shift between images and creating a patchwork-like effect when assembling a mosaic.

Until now, suppressing this effect during image processing has reduced variations in color between different parts of Mars. But to create this mosaic, the HRSC team instead color-referenced each constituent image to a color model derived from high-altitude observations, allowing them to preserve color variations and reveal a far richer color view of Mars than has been seen before.


This image is a close-up of the mosaic, with stretched contrast, and shows the canyon system Valles Marineris with annotated surface details: sulfate deposits, haze and fog, and cloud cover. This tectonic feature stretches more than 4000 km east-west and up to 700 km north-south, and is the biggest and most dramatic canyon system in the Solar System.
Faint bright-to-light blue areas show clouds in the atmosphere. The depths of Valles Marineris are also covered by the fog and haze that likes to form in Martian surface depressions at this time of year. Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/G. Michael, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

Each color a different material
While beautiful in its own right, the mosaic also provides fascinating information about Mars’s composition, revealing an unprecedented variety and detail of colors across its surface.

Mars is famous for its reddish color, which is caused by high levels of oxidized iron. However, large parts of the planet appear to be rather dark and blue-toned here. These are grey-black basaltic sands of volcanic origin that form far-reaching, dark layers of sand across Mars. They pile up as they move in the wind, creating imposing sand dunes and dune fields within impact craters.

Material weathered by water, on the other hand, tends to look lighter. The two most common water-weathered minerals on Mars, clay and sulfate minerals, appear particularly bright on such color composites; their presence was established by the OMEGA spectrometer on Mars Express. The presence of these minerals signals that liquid water existed on Mars for a long time, weathering and altering rock over time to form significant clay deposits such as Mawrth Vallis (a former outflow channel not shown in this view but previously observed by HRSC).

Sulphate minerals are visible here within the Valles Marineris canyon system, as seen most clearly in the annotated image. Here, however, they are covered by a thin veneer of dark sand, but their impressive color variations can be seen on closer look. Unlike clay deposits, sulfate minerals indicate more acidic environmental conditions that would be less friendly to life.

Artist’s impression of Mars Express. Credit: Alex Lutkus

Two decades of exploring Mars
Mars Express launched and has been orbiting the Red Planet since 2003 – 20 years ago! The orbiter is imaging Mars’ surface, mapping its minerals, identifying the composition and circulation of its tenuous atmosphere, probing beneath its crust, and exploring how various phenomena interact in the Martian environment.

The spacecraft’s HRSC, the camera responsible for these images, has revealed much about Mars’ diverse surface features in the past 20 years. Its images show everything from Mars’ second-tallest volcano, Ascraeus Mons and the mighty Valles Marineris canyon system to deep fractures and water-carved valleys and impact craters, tectonic faults, river channels, and ancient lava pools.

The mission has been immensely productive in its two decades of life, creating a far fuller and more accurate understanding of our planetary neighbor than ever before. It was initially planned to last for one Martian year, or around 687 Earth days, but has continued to meet and exceed its objectives. As the mission has been extended until at least the end of 2026, we can anticipate many more beautiful and insightful snapshots of Mars in the years to come.

20 years and counting: Mars Express in numbers. Credit: ESA

The mission’s High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) was developed and is operated by the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR).

The development of the color model method and processing of the mosaic was performed by Greg Michael of the HRSC team at Freie Universität Berlin. The acquisition and planning of the high-altitude images were the responsibility of the camera operations team at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) at Berlin-Adlershof. On publication of the upcoming scientific paper on the mosaic, the georeferenced dataset will be made available through the ESA guest storage facility.