Talk:Water on Mars

Habitability

This article presents many of the same out of date arguments as the ones used in the Life on Mars article. See Talk:Life on Mars#Present day habitability of surface of Mars again for the details.

I propose editing this article to remove those statements and to add back in the section on Possibility of enough liquid water to support life which was removed on 9th June 2013 by @BatteryIncluded: without discussion. This editor was blocked for sock puppetry and abusive language last November. I don't know if he is still blocked or has stopped editing wikipedia voluntarily, but anyway this gives an opportunity to fix this article.

There never was any reason to remove this section. But I couldn't get it restored because of his opposition. The present day habitability of Mars is a major topic at present, and the possibility of surface life there is the subject of numerous papers, press releases, and news reports. It's not proven that there is life there. But it's absurd for the Water on Mars article to not mention this topic. Nevertheless this is one of the subjects of most interest to present day astrobiologists. It's also the reason why we have planetary protection measures in place to protect Mars from Earth life. If there is no objection, I will restore the old section - updated and with new material added and any errors fixed, in a few days time. Robert Walker (talk) 14:06, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

I oppose the restoration of that section. It contained WP:OR and WP:SYNTH, referring to sources not explicitly about water and life on Mars. It is very long, somewhat rambling, and would unbalance this already long article. Fences&Windows 21:39, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Okay. But note I said "updated and with new material added and any errors fixed". Wouldn't restore it "as is". The things it says are accurate on the whole but it doesn't use the best sources and as you say is written in a rambling WP:OR way. I think it was the result of work by many editors who just added a sentence or two from time to time. We could just add the Present section of Life on Mars which I added to that article yesterday. The topic of the present day habitability of Mars is a vast one and it would unbalance this article as you say to include even a brief survey of the entire topic area. For an idea of how much is involved see my draft here: Draft:Present day habitability of Mars. That article has a natural separation as two separate articles, one on Mars analogues Present day Mars habitability analogue environments on Earth and another article on Present day habitability of Mars. There is no WP:OR or WP:SYNTH in that article which is also cited to WP:RS sources. It covers many of the topics in the old section. If we wanted to include more about the present day habitability of Mars in this article we could include brief summaries of some of the main proposed present day habitats on Mars. The main ones currently are covered here:

Surface habitats

This is sorted roughly according to the level of attention in the literature - the top four listed here I'd say, by notability, are top priority to be mentioned in a short summary:

• Droplets of liquid water on salt / ice interfaces
• Warm Seasonal flows (Recurrent Slope Lineae)
• Life able to take up water from the 100% night time humidity of the Mars atmosphere
• Deliquescing salts taking up moisture from the Mars atmosphere
• Sun warmed dust grains embedded in ice
• Southern hemisphere flow like features
• Shallow interfacial layers a few molecules thick
• Advancing sand dunes bioreactor

Subsurface habitats

• Ice covered lakes that form in polar regions after large impacts
• Temporary lakes resulting from volcanic activity
• Possibility of geological hot spots in present day Mars
• Potential for cave habitats on Mars
• Hydrosphere - possible layer of liquid water several kilometers below the surface

It could have separate short sections for each, or a bulleted list, with a short description of each of these habitats, why they are considered potentially habitable, and cites to the literature. Then perhaps a separate article on the vast topic of the present day habitability of Mars. Robert Walker (talk) 11:53, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Draft for habitability section

I am currently working on a draft for a new version of the Habitability section. You can see it here: User:Robertinventor/Water on Mars Habitability. Any comments welcome. I plan to expand all the bullet point habitat types in a similar way to the first two with about a paragraph for each one, and then it will be ready to add. Robert Walker (talk) 22:10, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

I've just added the new sections. Comments welcome! I have retained the links to my proposed "Present Day Habitability of Mars" article but removed the [[Draft:...]] so that they will be red text links for now. That article covers present day habitability in more detail. What are thoughts about the length, is it about right or should it be trimmed, or indeed expanded? Robert Walker (talk) 00:28, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Polar Ice Sheet

The new entry states: "There is much evidence for an ancient ice sheet in the south pole region". Would not that be the polar ice cap? It may need clarification. Thanks, BatteryIncluded (talk) 23:50, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

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"Running water" as sand flows

The first sentence and other portions of this article may need revision in light of https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-017-0012-5 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.31.242.194 (talk) 23:19, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

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Subsurface lake coordinates

How is it that the lake is at 193º W? I looked at Geography of Mars but could not find any explanation of this apparent deviation from (relatively) spherical bodies having 360 degrees in their two-dimensional surface coordinate systems.

Is Mars four-dimensional, or is there something I'm not understanding that I should be? If the latter, it should be explained in the accompanying text, perhaps, since this section is currently linked from the Main Page. Daniel Case (talk) 19:49, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

It's 193 degrees east not west. As for why see this ref [1] (you may need to click continue). Remember that earth has 193º W and 193º E as well. It's just that by convention we refer to them as 167º E or 167º W. By comparison, with Mars the standard which has been widely adopted is only to refer to º E. (Of course either way you also need a prime meridianmeridian, otherwise 167 or 193 or whatever leads to the question of degrees from where?) Nil Einne (talk) 20:21, 26 July 2018 (UTC) 20:57, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

See also Longitude#Longitude on bodies other than Earth which explains the various issues more generally (including how you define east/west/north/south). Nil Einne (talk) 21:00, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Daniel Case (talk) 02:04, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Section: Habitability assessment

The "Habitability assessment" section should be a brief summary of the parent article (Life on Mars). The reason for its present length has to do with the bias of a user that was recently banned indefinitely. In the past I sanitized it from POV and synthesis but it remains too large and I think it nearly hijacks the topic. I am planning on replacing it with a summary with emphasis in water. Any feedback is appreciated. Cheers, Rowan Forest (talk) 23:56, 4 September 2018 (UTC) --formerly user:BatteryIncluded.

I went ahead with a summary of this section, per Wikipedia:Summary style. Please feel free to improve it. Cheers, Rowan Forest (talk) 16:33, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Water at the south pole too

tempted to just fix this but i'm not sure of the technical defintions so i'll just ask...

is the second sentence "The only place where water ice is visible at the surface is at the north polar ice cap." still correct given the latest finding of water ice in the Korolev crater (which is linked to further down in the article)? --The Elves Of Dunsimore (talk) 03:23, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

Good catch. It was my mistake. The Korolev Crater is near the north polar cap, not the southern cap (which is mostly CO2 ice). Thank you, and my apologies. Rowan Forest (talk) 22:41, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

Due to the latest IP edit, I wish to remark that both polar ice caps contain water ice, but the southern cap has a thick layer of CO₂ covering the water ice. Therefore this statement in the article is still correct: "The only place where water ice is visible at the surface is at the north polar ice cap." Perhaps we can follow that sentence by mentioning the fact above? Cheers, Rowan Forest (talk) 17:47, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

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Please update with "Valley formation on early Mars by subglacial and fluvial erosion"

Please update section "Lakes and river valleys" with info on this study. It's currently included in 2020 in science like so:

Scientists report that valley networks in the southern highlands of Mars may have been formed mostly under glaciers, not free-flowing rivers of water, indicating that early Mars was colder than thought and that extensive glaciation likely occurred in its past.

Maybe this also warrants renaming the section due to "river valleys" indicating rivers of free-flowing water.

--Prototyperspective (talk) 15:49, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

References

Source of water?

This article should mention the hypothesized source of the water on early Mars. Unless we believe that every rocky planet in the universe features water oceans. 85.148.213.144 (talk) 04:34, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Water still on Mars (March 2021)

Long-term drying of Mars by sequestration of ocean-scale volumes of water in the crust Mapsax (talk) 21:46, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

ALSO, the related refs - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 23:36, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

 Done - added related text and references to the lead of the main "Water on Mars" article as follows: "In March 2021, researchers reported that the considerable amount of water on ancient Mars remains on Mars but has likely been sequestered into the rocks and crust of the planet over the years." - should be ok but *entirely* ok with me to rv,rm,mv,ce the edit of course - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 00:49, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

References