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Liquid Water Lake Detected Underneath Polar Ice on Mars

posted by takyon on Thursday July 26 2018, @12:01AM   Printer-friendly
from the wash-your-ass-on-Mars dept.

fritsd writes:

The Mars Express mission orbiting Mars (not the Beagle 2 part that crash-landed) has discovered liquid water in the south polar region of Mars.

The orbiter has been patiently circling Mars since 2003, using its ground-penetrating radar to map the surface up to a certain depth.

And now the ESA scientists have found a bright spot that they think is an underground lake.

Also at BBC, Science Magazine, Sky & Telescope, Ars Technica, and National Geographic.

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  • (Score: 4, Funny) by acid andy on Thursday July 26 2018, @12:12AM (3 children)

    by acid andy (1683) on Thursday July 26 2018, @12:12AM (#712798) Homepage Journal

    If they're right, this is the best news I've heard all year.

    --
    If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday July 26 2018, @12:45AM (2 children)

      by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Thursday July 26 2018, @12:45AM (#712809) Journal

      Is it? Could mean that we end up giving planetary protection a higher priority and scuttle human exploration.

      (Just trying to find a negative here.)

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @12:53AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @12:53AM (#712812)

        Human space exploration will never happen again.

        Ever.

        • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @02:39AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @02:39AM (#712879)

          Well! I'm glad that's settled!

          Plus, only incels want humans to live off planet, because they can't get laid.

          The old ways are best. Let's have an old fashioned war and reduce the planetary population by a few billion. That's the only way the incels can become men.

          The only way.

          Only.

          er.. Ever.

  • (Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Thursday July 26 2018, @12:59AM (3 children)

    by linkdude64 (5482) on Thursday July 26 2018, @12:59AM (#712815)

    Big if true.

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday July 26 2018, @01:27AM (2 children)

      by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Thursday July 26 2018, @01:27AM (#712830) Journal

      It will require a dedicated mission to sample the interior of the lake. No such mission is in the works since this was only just discovered (and could use confirmation... they seem to think there could be more lakes/water pockets). So it will be a long time before we could possibly discover microbes in it.

      This is big news in that it prevents the need to drill down hundreds of kilometers to find the much deeper pockets of liquid water. It's relatively accessible. Maybe we should be landing humans at the poles rather than anywhere else. They can also melt some of the surface ice for both study and to supply drinking water and oxygen.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]

      • (Score: 3, Funny) by RandomFactor on Thursday July 26 2018, @01:57AM

        by RandomFactor (3682) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 26 2018, @01:57AM (#712862) Journal

        "They can also melt some of the surface ice for both study and to supply drinking water and oxygen"

        Double win - if they catch some crazy Martian bug, that answers the whole life question!

        --
        В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды

      • (Score: 2) by fritsd on Thursday July 26 2018, @03:02PM

        by fritsd (4586) on Thursday July 26 2018, @03:02PM (#713140) Journal

        The article said that the radar echo came from 1.5 km deep. That sounds humanly possible to reach. There are goldmines in South Africa that are more than 3 km deep.

        If the "liquid" is a brine of concentrated perchlorate, it becomes a bit difficult to believe what could survive and thrive in that bleach.

        Here's another article about perchlorate in the surface soil [theguardian.com] (is hyping it a bit with its "covered in toxic chemicals". OK it's toxic but not very)

  • (Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Thursday July 26 2018, @01:23AM (7 children)

    by suburbanitemediocrity (6844) on Thursday July 26 2018, @01:23AM (#712825)

    I bet next someone is going to say their could be life there.

  • (Score: 2) by arslan on Thursday July 26 2018, @01:39AM

    by arslan (3462) on Thursday July 26 2018, @01:39AM (#712845)

    So they've discovered the Yellow Men of Mars [wikia.com]

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