Scientists said today they have “found proof” of water ice on Mars away from the polar ice caps, a discovery made by NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander.The finding is a crucial first step toward learning whether the ground on Mars is hospitable, because all life as we know it requires water. Now scientists can get on with the business of studying the chemistry of Mars dirt in more detail.When the probe took photos of a ditch it had dug four days before, scientists noticed that about eight small crumbs of a bright material had disappeared. They concluded those crumbs had been water ice buried under a thin layer of dirt that vaporized when Phoenix exposed them to the air.”It’s with great pride and a lot of joy I announce today we have found proof that this hard material really is water ice and not some other substance,” Phoenix principal investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson said at a briefing Friday.
See how that works? They have a theory, which is provable, disprovable, and repeatable, and then they test and retest to PROVE something is REAL! Now, if only I had some situation to which I could relate this story. Something that has something to do with Atheism, or the existence of a deity. Nah. I got nuthin.
Atheism is not capitalized when it’s not in the beginning of a sentence.
why did the photo show a bottle of aquafina on the ground by the probe.another thing why are they looking for water we have water look for petrol.
mars needs women was a great movie but doctor strangelove is tops.
Reason, don’t forget Mars Attacks! Ack Ack!
Excellent, this will make the eventual terraforming of Mars easier.
Mushinronjya please stop being the spelling police, its obnoxious.
iF PeOplE wanT to sPeLl ATheisT with a cApitAl ‘a’ WhATs ThE BIg dEaL?
I spell Atheist/Atheism with uppercase letters just the same as I spell Christianity/Christian Islam/Muslim and Judaism with uppercase letters. As for water on Mars, I’m glad they finally found it. Now for evidence of life past or present. . .
Yes — easy access to water ice on Mars definately boosts the chances of success for future human trips to Mars. Good news indeed!
They say ice on Mars opens the door to energy on mars, because they can use the water as fuel for power plants. Too bad there’s no water on Earth and we have to use oil.
Atheism and theism should not be capitalized unless it’s the first word of a sentence. Only religions are capitalized, like Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Flying Spaghetti Monster. Atheism is not a religion. It means not a theist (or not a moron, idiot, etc).
Water on Mars. They figured that out with a robot. Not bad. Meanwhile what have the creationists done for human progress?
I bet there was bacteria or some kind of living cells when Mars was much wetter. Maybe some life is still there somewhere. Wouldn’t it be great if they found life on Mars. It would be the beginning of the end of Christianity.
Anyone see the photo of the spaceship parachuting to Mars? The photo was taken from another spaceship orbiting Mars. That one picture was made possible by the tremendous progress of the human race. It’s just amazing. Without any Magic Man intervention, living cells developed on earth, and eventually life branched out into millions of different species. On one small branch on the tree of life there’s the human apes, and despite our biggest mistake, the god invention, we managed to put people on the moon, and robots on Mars. And we are just getting warmed up.
Wouldn’t be great to live long enough to witness the complete eradication of Christianity and other superstitious idiocy. When that happens there will be an explosion of human progress.
Life on other planets wouldn’t end Christianity, just adapt it in ways that wouldn’t really impact it much at all anyway. Even for the really, really insane Christians, it would just get chucked into the conspiracy theory bucket with the “faked moon landings”.
I kinda agree with Cynic. Most of mainstream Christianity will simply evolve with the times as more evidence comes in to disprove it. Christians are amazing at dancing around hard facts to make their system ‘fit’ into science. Luckily we know better so we can allocate those mental clock cycles to something more productive.
BobC
Which may be our ruin.
OT alert
Seymour Hersch is reporting that Cheney and gang had meetings on how to provoke a war with Iran.
Although there is little evidence to suggest that BushCo was behind 9-11 (and I am not suggesting at this point that BushCo was) if the evidence does come out I wont be the least bit surprised.
I think “The bright specs in the soil sample were water ice ” is a hypothesis, not a theory. They then tested that hypothesis and proved the fact.
“God created the earth 6000 years ago” is a hypothesis that never checked out. “Life evolved on Earth through a gradual process of small random changes over billions of years” is a hypothesis that long ago checked out and has developed into the theory of Evolution.
Hence, statements like “evolution is just a theory” are absurd..*just* a theory? Creationism sits at home *wishing* it could be a theory, but its just a lowly failed hypothesis.
Great work for science, NASA Mars geeks! Love ya!
Atheism is not religion but it is a movement with a particular paradigm. We are a more or less organized group of people and Atheist should be capitalized just like Babtist, Lutheran, Pentacostal and Christian. I’m glad this idea has been kicked around here because I didn’t used to capitalize Atheist.
The discovery of Ice crystals on mars is just another item which will necessitate the further evolution of organized religion. When Britian recently declassified their entire UFO file the Pope had his astronomer(?) announce if ETs do exist, they will have to have been created by the particular god the Pope has endorsed. I’d sure like to hear the rest of that story. The really insane Christians will just have to smear on a thicker coat of paint over their lunacy. Eventually the original picture will become unrecognizable.
I have a DVD entitled, “The UFO Conspiracy” (newlibertyvideos.com) which states all UFOs recorded over millenia have been piloted by demons right out of the bible! Too funny. A couple interesting points in the flick mentioned that as Alexander the Great marched across Eurasia he was harrassed by two flying discs which scattered his army. Some of his fearless troops put up a stand and tried to take down the discs with slings and arrows.
Also, Columbus wrote in his ships log shortly before landing on this side of the Atlantic, a bright disc flew out of the sky, plunged into the water and followed his ship while submerged. Just stuff I’d never heard before.
The Christians who put that video together better hope an intergallactic battlegroup of carnivores with some other god don’t cruise into our solar system and assume our star wars technology represents a threat to their security. That could add a whole new meaning to the phrase, let us prey.
What,
The Seymour Hersh piece is on the money. The madmen in DC are desperate to maintain control and McCain is looking shakier the closer we get to the election. The desperate warmongers know if Obama wins, the good old boy network will collapse. I do suggest BushCo was behind 9/11. There is plenty of evidence pointing in that direction.
Here’s a thought: Why are some of the smartest people on Earth spending their lives driving rovers around on Mars when humanity faces an imminent threat to its continued existence (i.e. religion)? Don’t get me wrong, it’s interesting knowledge, but a million people won’t die brutal deaths next year over whether water is on Mars. At least a million people WILL die because of fighting over which definition of god or gods has to be defended. If an asteroid were heading our way, we’d freak, but religious wars that kill the same numbers of people are just accepted as normal. Also, it’s safe to say Martians will never come to earth to take away our freedom and place us under dictatorial repression, but religiously inspired folks have done it before, are doing it now, and vow to continue doing it.
Perhaps if these scientists had made a discovery that would assist us in controlling this devastating mind-virus, I would be more excited. As it is, no one on earth is safe from religiously inspired violence. If the smart people of the world don’t start working on the religion problem, then we might not last long enough to ever taste this water we have discovered.
All of this knowledge that was produced could be erased within the first few decades of the next dark age, unless we do something about it.
Ice on Mars!? Vanilla, Cube or T?