Space probe finds giant frozen sea on Mars

From Reuters via the Houston Chronicle:

A European space probe scanning the surface of Mars has discovered what scientists say appears to be a giant frozen sea near the planet's equator.

The discovery was the first of a body of what may be water that has been found away from the polar ice caps and was revealed by the Mars Express spacecraft that has been orbiting and photographing the planet for a year.

Although the high resolution images only cover an area a few tens of kilometres across, they are in what appears to be a flood plain measuring a massive 800 kilometres long by 900 kilometres wide.

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Am I crazy to think it's a bit weird that this story isn't getting more press? I mean, I'm no expert, but this strikes me as something that could potentially affect the way the human race understands it's place in the universe. The presence of this much water dramatically ups the chances that life once existed on Mars--even if it's just life at the cellular level, it would be, as Zaphod Beeblebrox once said, "amazingly amazing." We would no longer be alone. Even if it turns out that there never was any life on the red planet, this frozen sea almost certainly means that life will be there one day. That is, we'll be there. An enormous supply of Martian water greatly increases our ability to create a sustainable colony there, which seems probable given that the fourth stone from the Sun is essentially an entirely new planet for exploitation by capitalists. We will become a spacefaring race; we will never be the same again.

Now, that's news!

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