
Spectral Evidence for Hydrated Salts in Seasonal Brine Flows on Mars [pdf] - mychaelangelo
http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EPSC2015/EPSC2015-838-1.pdf
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iwwr
It was already known that liquid water can exist on about half of Mars, though
in a very narrow temperature range (around 0C).

The green and blue bits have the adequate pressures for liquid water to exist:

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Mars_top...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Mars_topography_%28MOLA_dataset%29_with_poles_HiRes.jpg)

Very narrow phase-space in which liquid water can exist, the yellow rectangle
is conditions on Mars:

[https://i.imgur.com/BeDg1KM.gif](https://i.imgur.com/BeDg1KM.gif)

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ComputerGuru
This isn't the big news scheduled for tomorrow, is it?

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wcarss
My layperson's opinion is that it is.

The paper reports data indicative of transient liquid salt* water flowing on
current day Mars (as in, in the past year), answering the "mystery" of the
apparent daily sand flows in pictures previously seen.

That's sort of huge, because wow at confirming liquid water there pretty much
right now, but it's also a bit of a hollow thing to reveal, as it's just solid
confirmation of something strongly suspected for many months.

* Exactly _what_ salt is not super clear, I think? Mg-perchlorate and Mg-çhlorate are mentioned, but the exact mineralogy isn't able to be stated from the current results.

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waterlesscloud
Yeah, it's cool, but it's not really a "major announcement."

Still, science marches forward.

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fsloth
From my perspective this is pretty major. It was not very long ago that we had
no proof of liquid water on any other rock in our solar system.

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Zardoz84
We know that Enceladus and Europe have liquid water.

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fsloth
The proof for both is from this millenium (from Galileo and Cassini probes).
To me it's still fairly recent. While I find the principle of induction does
trivialize lot of mathematical calculations I cannot apply the same principle
of non-wonderment to discoveries made in the material world.

