Friday, October 21, 2005

Yes we have no water...

Two streaks of light blazed across the Martian sky, in January of 2004, as the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity each approached their respective landing sites. One of the mission’s goals was to search for evidence of past water activity on a Mars that, it is hoped, had a warm and wet past. Inherent in this search for water activity is the search for evidence of life on the surface of Mars, and the implications that such a discovery would have for the naturalistic origin of life on Earth. Interestingly enough, it now appears that the temperature on Mars has been below 0ยบ C for the last 4 billion years (link here, scroll down to the 9/25 entry). The idea of Mars having a warm and wet past seems to have just had ice thrown all over it.

No comments: