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I am actually overcome with Joy at this news, and space buff that I have been all my life, have real tears of happiness coming from my eyes. Here is the coverage I like best, from the Guardian:

Nasa scientists find evidence of flowing water on Mars | Science | The Guardian

Briny water flows out during Mars' summer months. On this planet, our earth, where there is water there is always some form of life, including our Dead Sea (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... s-science/).

It throws all the Creationist claims of this being the only planet that God made life on, because of this being the only planet with water on being proof of this out of the window.

Of course the obvious arguments against there being life are bound to be that it is brine (salt water), but then again so is the vast majority of the water on this planet. And even then, water can evaporate from brine, leaving the salt behind - such as in Salt Lake, Utah, for example.

The Rover may have only explored a fraction of the planet, and already we have proof of water. Imagine an alien landing a probe on earth & it landing in the middle of the Sahara. What might an alien intelligence thought of the chances of life here?

Well, formal "life" has not been discovered, yet, unless one considers water a form of Life, and I do. I'm not jumping ahead, just find this extremely exciting! Since childhood, I have always loved the universe & to paraphrase Carl Sagan "It is a miracle if there is life and a miracle if there is not." Think I got that right, I'll check!

https://books.google.com/books?id=gJ1rD ... an&f=false

Project chief engineer Gentry Lee says, "Maybe life evolved first on Mars and was knocked off the surface and carried to the Earth. Maybe we're all Martians."

'Maybe We're All Martians'

“A blade of grass is a commonplace on Earth; it would be a miracle on Mars. Our descendants on Mars will know the value of a patch of green. And if a blade of grass is priceless, what is the value of a human being?

• Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1 ... e-blue-dot

It is known that comets often contain the basic amino acids required for life, and given the right conditions, only a microscopic amount is needed to seed its growth on impact. You can take a hermetically sealed jar of supposedly sterile water & leave it in the sun, and before long you can be sure there'll be algae growing on the inside.

Uplifting, thank you FourPart!

FourPart;1486948 wrote: You can take a hermetically sealed jar of supposedly sterile water & leave it in the sun, and before long you can be sure there'll be algae growing on the inside.Only if it contains DNA. Mere amino acids is totally insufficient. Nobody has ever achieved what you claim unless algae is initially present in the sealed jar or the water. There's four billion years of unbroken evolutionary descent in every piece of algae you could ever clap your eyes on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation is an entirely exploded concept. Pasteur destroyed it.

Nice being around such smart people. Thanks spot!

I wonder what else is 'just around the corner', waiting to be discovered on Mars? Exciting times!