Evidence Of Water On Mars' Surface Turns Out To Be Just Be Sand: Everybody Interested In Mars Is Disappointed, Which Is Nobody
(CNN)Since the discovery of dark streaks on the slopes of Mars in 2011, astronomers have been excited about potential evidence of water beneath the surface of the red planet. If there are subsurface water flows on Mars, they could allow life -- even on a microbial level -- to exist as well.
But further study of these recurring slope lineae, known as RSL, is revealing something else.
Those dark streaks may be the result of granular flows like sand and dust, according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience.
HAHAHA of course it is! Take that NASA! (NASA doesn’t have anything to do with this) Years of people getting excited because “oh gooossssshhhh, Marv. Look at these little baby riverbeds on Mars. There must have been water here!” and now everybody has to accept that, no, that wasn’t water, just sand!
The big shocker is: wait, are we still studying Mars? Look, I was just as pumped up as everybody else when we finally got to Mars, but c’mon, since then it’s been a big bust. No aliens. No life. No water on the surface. And hey, we went through all the motions. We covered it in the news, we let those little remote control cars roam around until they ran out of batteries, and we marveled at every sand dune they saw!
But it’s since become clear that Mars is the most boring system in our solar system, and maybe the universe. I would rather die in whatever cataclysmic global event arrives then spend a second living on that sand pit. The best thing we got out of Mars was a kickass book and a kickass movie called the Martian, and honestly, that’s not too bad. We’ve spent the last decade renaming the fucking ball of ice Pluto, and no good movies have come out of that at all.
So yeah, I get it; there’s probably still water lurking somewhere under the surface on Mars. But since it looks like we’re not going to find the remnants of any Martian civilization that was long ago wiped out, let’s move on the next one, yeah? Mars is officially a pariah-nerd topic.
P.S. I cannot tell you how quickly I’ll hop back on the Mars train at the slightest hint of a new discovery.
