http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/sep/26/nasa-curiosity-rover-mars-soil-water

Water has been discovered in the fine-grained soil on the surface of Mars, which could be a useful resource for future human missions to the red planet, according to measurements made by Nasa's Curiosity rover.

Each cubic foot of Martian soil contains around two pints of liquid water, though the molecules are not freely accessible, but rather bound to other minerals in the soil.

Pretty amazing stuff. Terraforming a possibility?

Pretty amazing stuff. Terraforming a possibility?

http://media.heavy.com/media/2012/08/tumblr_m3td422taC1qc42hdo1_500.gif

GL

The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one

that gif is why you should always be sun smart when at the beach

Hope they find oil on Mars, NASA will get a 1000% funding boost. Liberate the s*** out of Mars.

yeah but what the gentleman was going at is if they found the oils on mars its a pretty sure bet that the good ol USA would be on mars tomorrow with the oil find patrol of freedom bustin heads and taking names

finding water is nice and all but we still have that over here,,, even if evian and coca cola finds it for twenty cents a container load up in the mountains and sells it off for 4 bucks fiddy a 500ml bottle

its simple economics aint it?

yeah but what the gentleman was going at is if they found the oils on mars its a pretty sure bet that the good ol USA would be on mars tomorrow with the oil find patrol of freedom bustin heads and taking namesfinding water is nice and all but we still have that over here,,, even if evian and coca cola finds it for twenty cents a container load up in the mountains and sells it off for 4 bucks fiddy a 500ml bottleits simple economics aint it?

It's easy when you think simple.

We're trying to stop burning our own fossil fuels, why would we invest billions/trillions into a project that will allow us to do it again?

I...

Not enough for terraforming, and the need to basically turn over every square mile of regolith is a bummer. Mars isn't a good place to terraform anyway, as without a magnetic field its atmosphere gets blown away by the sun over time.

Its a pretty big deal for colonisation though, one of the big issues with Mars is the need to truck in water.

o noes a drow f**

lol i played my first game of drow in months last night was fun :p

Not as much fun as when her aura was global which was kind of dumb..

Tell us the Truth NASA.

The early stuff that I saw seemed to indicate that they thought that this would be uniform across the planet, which is what confused me. Guess that ground analyzer thingamabob on the new thing really was a big step forward in terms of what they've sent there.

I find these explanations acceptable, you shall both be knighted.

I'm just left wondering how the hell this was not known decades ago with all the probes that we've sent there...

a couple of reasons... only 3 rovers have had the capability to do soil sample testing on site. spirit & opportunity only landed in 2004 & curiosity in 2012... so that's how no one 'knew' there was water in the soil decades ago. from memory, there was a problem with the soil testers on both spirit & opportunity.. one had a blocked intake & the other had a broken oven.

both spirit & opportunity discovered evidence of water previously existing in the soil & on the surface or mars in the form of goethite. nasa made the appropriate press releases.. there were no dragons, ninjas or aliens so no one much cared.

curiosity discovered the water in the soil within the first couple of months of it landing on mars. nasa made the appropriate press releases.. the article in the op is just about the formal release of scientific papers.

it's hilarious that knobs like faceman are always spouting crap like 'tell us the truth nasa!' when the truth is right there for anyone to read about... it's just not the wondrous fairy tale some people want to hear.

thats just silly, why would god put water on mars?

- my nan when I told her about this news