OoO!!

[staxxy]

Flowing water on MARS!!!

It flows out of an underground spring and then freezes in the atmosphere.

WATER
on MARS!!!!

Spydrman just told me. It was in his wired news feed.

WOW!!!!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,234830,00.html

Comments

[intrepid_reason]

That is fracking cool! More signs that there may be life on Mars. {:o)

[staxxy]

just under the surface!!!

I am very excited by this!

[sistawendy]

1) Nifty!
2) What that water is doing is vacuum boiling because the atmospheric pressure is so low; you can vacuum-boil water on earth if you have a flask and a strong pump. Mars's atmospheric pressure is so low that water ice sublimes -- it goes directly from solid to gas without passing through a liquid phase, as dry ice (frozen CO2) does here on earth.

[sistawendy]

Oh yeah: what's so cool about vacuum boiling on Earth is that you can do it at room temperature!

[evaria]

I adore you for this nerdyness!

[vulture23]

Well, calling it a "spring" may be a bit of an exaggeration...

The gullies they've noticed have probably only had flowing water once in the last decade -- and probably not for a *long* time before the last decade. After all, they're noticeable specifically because they're different from the pictures we took ten years ago. Most likely scenario is that there's a block of subsurface ice that has melted for some reason... so it's not quite liquid water under the surface, and it's only liquid for a very brief period before it either freezes or boils.

Still very cool stuff, though. :)

[staxxy]

aw. And there go my "there's life underground" hopes. poop.

[vulture23]

It's worse than that, even. All signs of past standing water that we've seen on Mars are... um... not exactly friendly water. As in extremely acidic and extremely salty. But... you never really know what exolife might be able to adapt to.... :)

[staxxy]

yeah, that is what I was thinking. I mean... it's not like life *has* to be carbon based even.

[purge_chic]

Thats so incredibly trippy.

Why is it there? Where is it flowing to, and why?

[staxxy]

it really is just full of possibilities!