September 28th, 2012
09:44 AM ET

Rover finds evidence of ancient water on Mars

If the Curiosity rover had been sent to Mars in ancient times, it might have found itself sinking in a stream.

The 2,000-pound super-rover, which made its now-legendary landing on Mars on August 6, has come across stones in conglomerate rock suggesting that water must have flowed there in the past.
One such rock outcrop is called Hottah, after Hottah Lake in Canada's Northwest Territories.

It looks like someone took a jackhammer and lifted up a sidewalk, said John Grotzinger, lead scientist for the Curiosity mission, at a press conference Thursday.

FULL STORY

Post by:
Filed under: In Space • Mars
soundoff (19 Responses)
  1. Why bother

    What really puzzles me the most is we spend all this money searching for "new people" and yet we can't even live in peace with one another. All this racism and discrimination, so what if NASA finds these "green people" – would it be a 3-way slipt in color and what if these "green people" have their own religion? very interesting. For these I feel God, All Knowing, has hidden these things from us till we remove these petty racism and discrimination from even just our thoughts.

    October 22, 2012 at 12:57 pm |
    • RobM

      If that's the case why doesn't god hide the Middle East away from the rest of the universe?

      October 23, 2012 at 12:38 pm |
  2. Tim

    So what billoins of dollars spent on this and what will this do for planet earth and the people here that are starving and dieing of cancer this money would have been better spent on finding the cure.

    October 16, 2012 at 7:27 am |
    • Alex

      If I remember correctly, they spent less than 3 billion dollars on the project. This is way less than the trillions of dollars that is spent on unnecessary wars over in the Middle East. Even a fraction of the money spent on wars could help everything that you had mentioned.

      Also, billions is spelt "billions" not "billoins"

      October 16, 2012 at 4:35 pm |
  3. chis

    Democrats support racial affirmative action programs in employment and college programs. Think before you vote.

    October 11, 2012 at 5:39 pm |
    • Necronn99

      No chris you think before you vote. 4 years of below actions and you vote for the fool again. What you like taking abuse. I think this rover should find a home for all you DemoIdiots and plant you here.

      October 18, 2012 at 7:15 pm |
  4. Terrell

    @ Voiceinthedesert/Troubledgoodangel ; You're a crazy psycho.

    October 9, 2012 at 10:21 pm |
  5. WNTNH

    North pole of Earth still has ice and a planet still farther from the sun had water flowing???

    October 8, 2012 at 5:36 pm |
  6. Voiceinthedesert/Troubledgoodangel

    Mad scientists without hearts! Millions of human beings on earth have no drinking water! They instead drink poison. And you are telling me that it will take hundreds of years to know whether your theories are good or bad, and that there is no God! You also tell me that in these hundred years, yous sons will become scientists, and their sons, and their sons' sons! In other words, with this useless pursuit against God and goodness for His creatures on earth, you will create generations of oligarchs within your scientist families! I believe that the People of Earth will raise up against your mad projects eventually! Wait until the earth population reaches ten billions! They will catapult all of you to Mars if you keep doing nothing for the Earth!

    October 6, 2012 at 6:53 am |
    • Spacy

      Oh.........Wow.

      October 8, 2012 at 3:30 am |
    • G

      I wanna know what the hell you read to make you think this, because we're clearly not reading the same article here.

      October 16, 2012 at 9:55 pm |
    • LH

      Excuse me, god, Politics have no place in science and yes people are drinking poison instead of water which is why companies have been buying up water and some stupid countries have been privatizing a resource that is as essential as air and letting people make billions of dollars off of this comedity while those who have nothing cant do anything about basically buying their own water. Blame trade and human greed. The research on mars is to hopefully find out if there could have been life on another planet. Also the reason their is no longer ice on the planet is because of its extreme lack of a strong atmosphere. Something occurred in mars past to destroy it another reason they are researching it because one theory was that Mars's atmosphere was destroyed during a solar storm at a time that its atmosphere was in a vulnerable state, like when a polar shift occurs on earth this research could lead to a way of protecting us from such occurrences if our atmosphere where to ever fail. Go Curiosity!

      October 22, 2012 at 9:42 am |
  7. Voiceinthedesert/Troubledgoodangel

    The problem is that an "ancient water" is undrinkable! When God was creating the universe, He hauled all water to the planet earth! Then, in His great love for us, He gave us the planet earth with plenty of water on it. Let's make ithe Earth bloom, rather than spending billions on "fixing the water problem on Mars"!

    October 6, 2012 at 6:41 am |
    • G

      Jesus christ, are you people for real?

      October 16, 2012 at 9:54 pm |
  8. Mike H.

    Some kind of molecular life probably exists underground.

    October 3, 2012 at 4:43 pm |
    • O_O

      That would be so amazing!

      October 9, 2012 at 8:56 am |
  9. Steven

    Gotta love this. Anyone ever played the game Doom? The new one. Or maybe Total Recall. How about any other movie abou the "Red Planet". Whatever lived there, more than likely doesn't anymore. But what happens if we find life there? How will WE handle that?

    September 28, 2012 at 1:41 pm |
    • George

      Yea,that would be crazy, i hope they find life there. We need some kind of proof that we humans are not the only life forms in the Universe !!!!! 🙂

      October 1, 2012 at 7:51 pm |

Contributors

  • Elizabeth Landau
    Writer/Producer
  • Sophia Dengo
    Senior Designer