Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Water on Mars


Preston Klimley
Earth Science Current Events Report

            In this article they discussed a rover that had landed on Mars and what it found. The rover named Curiosity found different pebbles in several exploring sites. The patterns on certain rocks and the pebbles in the exploring sites showed some evidence that there was once a water source in that location. Further exploration showed that there was a canyon 18 kilometers long, about 600 meters across and 30 meters deep, the canyon was called Peace Vallis. Peace Vallis stretched into the creator rim and sediments were swept onto the creator floor forming a floodplain. If the Curiosity had landed 2.5 billion years earlier, scientists said that it would have ben in a stream about the depth of your ankle to your hip. The rover did not stop there however, it is still moving around trying to find signs of life friendly environment, more water and organic carbon that we could build life from.
            Overall I enjoyed this article. I think that the possibility of life on other planets is fascinating. However I would have liked to read more about the possibility of life forms living on Mars. They told us that there was water there but does this mean that we can grow food or live there. Also one thing that I would have liked to read about would be what further research is being done on Mars if anything. One thing that I did like about the article was that they talked about what mars would have looked like 2.5 billion years ago if we were to have landed on it. This just shows the radical changes that planets undergo over time.
            This article has a lot of importance in our world today. With all of the theories about the world exploding and everyone dying, imagine if we could simply live somewhere else. Imagine if there was a planet that we could live on besides Earth. Maybe in he years to come we will figure out away to move people to another planet and make a civilization there.
            

2 comments:

  1. I read your blog post on “Water on Mars,” and I found it really fascinating. The structure on the post is very well written along with the flow of the writing. I was able to understand about the rover, Curiosity, because of the detail on how it worked. I also liked how you referred back in time to show how much Mars has changed. The analysis on the article that was read was also well written. It included what was liked but also a lot of what was disliked. I agree, from reading the reflection, that there are many questions to be asked, and I would like to read more about life on Mars, if there is any. I also really liked the question that was brought up about if we could live someone else? There are so many studies on other planets, searching for life, but why is it just Earth that has so much life, why not Mars?
    Through this blog post, I learned about the rover, Curiosity, which is on Mars, still today, searching for any signs of life. I found it interesting that 2.5 billion years ago, there was a lot more water on Mars, than there is today. I hope to continue learning about life on Mars and other planets, because who knows what is going to happen to them in the next 1,000 years.

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  2. I found this post remarkably well organized. You introduced new topics and information and immediately provided perfect descriptions, leaving myself, along with other readers, with minimal factual questions. I agree with Killian I also was intrigued by the history and evolution of this captivating planet. It seems, by your analysis, that the article hinted at life by conveying Mars' possession of flowing water. This article somewhat hints at the possibility, but we were left hanging and uninformed. You asked the type of questions that should have been answered in the text, and you were quick enough to catch the writer leaving out key points of information. Curiosity, the rover, really caught my attention, and more importantly its discovery of Peace Vallis. I wondered What could have caused this massive crater on Mars?
    The fact that the rover did not stop at finding just one new geological formation is encouraging. Hopefully Curiosity makes plenty more discoveries and changes our perception on this planet. The change of Mars over a few billion years also leaves us with questions on what could come next? But otherwise your piece was factual, but not just a list of notes, which made it easy to follow.

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