“We’ve seen evidence for this water ice before in observations by the Mars Odyssey orbiter and in disappearing chunks observed by Phoenix last month,” scientist William Boynton said in a written statement released by NASA and the Jet Propulsion Lab, “but this is the first time Martian water has been touched and tasted.”
Boynton is lead scientist for the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer team based at the University of Arizona.
Details of the composition of the water were not immediately released. The sample came from a 2-inch deep trench carefully carved by the lander’s robotic arm.
The presence of water is one of more dramatic discoveries made by the Phoenix since it touched down on Mars near the pole May 24. NASA announced it had secured funding to extend the Phoenix mission through Sept. 30.
More here: http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/
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I don’t particularly want to get into a discussion of Intelligent Design theory or religion, either. But it’s (Intelligent Design’s) advocates have strived to frame it as a scientific theory; with some success, I think. I think it’s most accurate to look at all forays into origins as philosophy rather than science – including so-called evolutionary theories of origins.
The most interesting thing about Intelligent Design theory is that is doesn’t really try to explain origins, per se. That is, it does not try to describe a mechanism for the origin of life like evolutionary theories do. Rather, it makes an argument that the complexity of life precludes it from having been caused by natural processes in the same way that we can look at an automobile and conclude that it did not originate through natural causes. One does not need to know how an automobile is built to know that it is built and not the result of the laws of chemistry and physics operating randomly over time. Even though the automobile’s operation does not violate any of those laws, they are not sufficient to cause it’s manufacture. Intelligent Design theory is an effort to formulate these principles scientifically.
Please stop.
We are born.
We will die.
In between we wonder why
(except in my case,
when a cute redhead walks by).
Apparently the moon has a lot of helium 3, with potential in fusion reactors.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/helium3_000630.html