Water On Mars
By Glen Hiemstra, 2000
It may be the most significant news from Space, ever. Today, June 22, 2000 NASA announced the discovery of what seems to be water on Mars, news originally broken by Space.com on June 20. This is not evidence that water used to flow on Mars, something long accepted, but rather that active seepage water springs have been pinpointed.
Space.com summarized the news as follows: “Researchers using NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft announced Thursday that they found puzzling signs of water seeping into what appear to be fresh gullies, channels and alcoves cut into the Martian surface?’Weeping layers’ of rock turned up in more than 120 locations on Mars?”
The immediate implication is to change theories of what happened to the water on ancient Mars. It has generally been assumed that most of it vaporized and escaped the planet, with remnants possibly beneath the surface in frozen deposits, visible in the polar ice caps, and in thin water vapor in the atmosphere. But this new evidence suggests that there is free water, near the surface, capable of flowing. If it is there, the odds of there being microbial life on Mars become must greater.
Further, with this new evidence of water, the impetus to explore for life on Mars, to send human expeditions, and to colonize Mars will build rapidly. Perhaps this discovery will be seen as the real beginning of the space century, the 21st Century.
Glen Hiemstra is a futurist speaker, author, consultant, blogger, internet video host and Founder of Futurist.com. To arrange for a speech contact Futurist.com.
Additional Resources
Full coverage at Space.com, (an outstanding Web site in general)
More details on the NASA announcement
The NASA view, and the specific press release
