"Underground Ocean Detected on Mars" Topic

This isn't science fiction, it's real. link

But now you get to do the SF! What aliens live some 11 to 20 km below the surface of Mars? Have they heard our knocking about above them? Are they ticked off by the disturbances of their underground concerts and poetry readings? What might emerge from the depths?!?

Start your scenarios…

That's where the Black Martians that John Carter fought live.

Thanks.

John

I don't need an ocean 11 or 12 klicks down: I need on right on top--Sea Kings of Mars/Sword of Rhiannon. If I can't have the future of Brackett and CL Moore, I want to go at least Captain Kirk out--three centuries, give or take--or straight to the Vorkosiverse. Everything short term is dystopia or milSF.

With a little luck, we could wind up with dystopian MilSF.

[I should explain. As far as I'm concerned I am already living in an SF world. Have been since somewhere around ATMs and retinal-scan ID. But it's REALLY BAD SF. If I submitted the last 25 years to John Campbell, it would come back either rejected without comment, or with tens of pages about why I couldn't work this way, and what were people doing to fix it. I couldn't argue against it.]

The Doctor Who episode "The Waters of Mars" will explain how this will turn out in a few decades.

The water amoeba in the subterranean oceans, disturbed by the vibrations of construction on the surface, begin to push their way ever upwards. Small scouts make it to the surface for a short time before they must return to the depths or lose their life giving moisture to the hostile atmosphere. Once the scouts return to the oceanic body, what they have sensed on the surface is joined to the collective knowledge of the ocean. Larger amoeba then push towards the surface, knowing only that they must put an end to the disturbances. dun-dun-dunnn

Of course there is water. What do you think the dinosaurs drink?

Title "Underground Ocean Detected on Mars" is overstated, per the article:

"Based on that data, the researchers found liquid water was MOST LIKELY PRESENT deep beneath the lander…

"On Earth what we know is where it is wet enough and there are enough sources of energy, there is microbial life very deep in Earth's subsurface," said one of the authors, Vashan Wright of the University of California San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography. "The ingredients for life as we know it exist in the Martian subsurface IF THESE INTERPRETATIONS ARE CORRECT"

So what the title should really say is something to the effect that "Seismic data indicates the possibility of water deep below the surface of Mars… but we don't really know for sure… it's really just an educated guess…"

Oh, and by the way, how about increasing our funding for the 2025 fiscal year??