Keith’s note: According to “Slope Streaks on Mars – Not A Sign Of Water After All?” from Brown University: “A new study led by the University of Bern and Brown University in the U.S. casts doubt on one of the most tantalizing clues that water might be flowing on present-day Mars. Researchers analyzed a global database of 500,000 enigmatic streaks that occur on steep Martian slopes, concluding that they’re most likely caused by dry processes rather than liquid flow.” This could have important impacts on Mars exploration – by droids as well as humans. Remember that whole ‘water may be flowing on the surface of Mars’ thing back in 2000? (NASAWatch broke the story). People went totally crazy. Now there’s a suggestion that things are possibly different than we thought. Will NASA’s Astrobiology program mention it? Most likely not.

Keith’s note: I have been living with the image in my mind of the Pioneer plaques and Voyager Golden Records heading across the outer solar system and into interstellar space for half a century. To me, that was the most Carl Sagan – of Carl Sagan – ideas. All these years later – despite its Disco era origins – it transcends time well – which is exactly what you want a message to the inhabitants of another solar system to embody. Well, NASA just did something as cool – and in some ways even cooler. More at An Astrobiology Droid Asks And Answers ‘How Many Ways Can You Say Water’?

More Evidence of Water on the Moon “NASA-funded lunar research has yielded evidence of water locked in mineral grains on the surface of the moon from an unknown source deep beneath the surface. Using data from NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) instrument aboard the Indian Space Research Organization’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, scientists remotely detected magmatic water, or water that originates from deep within the moon’s interior, on the surface of the […]

NASA to Debut Water Falls Movie this Fall [Watch Trailer], SpaceRef “This fall coming to select theatres, is a movie about water, one that NASA thinks will change how you view our watery world. Water Falls, A Science on a Sphere Film is a different type of movie. According to NASA, the movie is designed for playback specifically on spherical screens and “the project immediately demanded an abstract, poetic presentation […]

Water on the Moon (video), NASA Goddard “Since the 1960’s, scientists have suspected that frozen water could survive in cold, dark craters at the Moon’s poles. While previous lunar missions have detected hints of water on the Moon, new data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) pinpoints areas near the south pole where water is likely to exist.”

If the Mars rover finds water, it could be H2 … uh oh!, LA Times “On Nov. 1, after learning that the drill bit box had been opened, Conley said she had the mission reclassified to one in which Curiosity could touch the surface of Mars “as long as there is no ice or water.” Conley’s predecessor at NASA, John D. Rummel, a professor of biology at East Carolina University, […]

Ice Found in Shackleton Crater on the Moon, NASA “NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft has returned data that indicate ice may make up as much as 22 percent of the surface material in a crater located on the moon’s south pole.” Researchers Find Evidence of Ice Content at the Moon’s South Pole, MIT “If humans are ever to inhabit the Moon, the lunar poles may well be the location […]

NASA’s Mars Rover Spirit Finds Evidence of Subsurface Water “The ground where NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit became stuck last year holds evidence that water, perhaps as snow melt, trickled into the subsurface fairly recently and on a continuing basis. Researchers took advantage of Spirit’s months at Troy last year to examine in great detail soil layers the wheels had exposed, and also neighboring surfaces. Spirit made 13 inches of […]

Ice Rich Crater At The Moon’s North Pole “NASA Radar returns first high-resolution view of an unusual crater near Moon’s north pole Mini-RF, a synthetic aperture radar on board NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, recently imaged a potentially ice-rich crater near the north pole of the Moon. Located at 84N, 157W, this permanently shadowed crater, about 5 miles (8 kilometers) in diameter, lies on the floor of the larger, more degraded […]

Making a Splash With a Hint of Mars Water, Science, 30 June 2000 “Opening the press conference, planetary geologist Michael Malin of Malin Space Science Systems Inc. (MSSS) in San Diego warned that “the actual science may pale before the science fiction that has been written.” The fiction grew out of an accurate, if vague, item on the independent watchdog Web site, NASA Watch (www.nasawatch.com), late afternoon on 19 June. […]