There is water on Mars, according to NASA.

Good old H2O.

Let me reiterate, for those who might not have picked up on my excitement:

THERE IS WATER ON MARS!!

Those grainy pictures of a few tiny little ice flakes should get the blood of any card-carrying science fiction geek pumping. Those crystals conjure grandiose visions of colonization and terraforming and attractive women in chain mail thong bikinis.

(Official NASA Photo from Phoenix Lander)

But the more (dare I say it?) down-to-earth reaction to this news is that we’ve discovered one of the crucial elements of life (as we know it) on another rock in our very own solar system. In the distant past when Mars was a warmer place with a denser atmosphere, this ice would very likely have been liquid water. The presence of liquid water dramatically increases the chance that some primitive form of life may have evolved on Mars at some point, and that discovery – even if it’s nothing more than a frozen microbe carcass – could change our perspective on the nature of life and biology like nothing has since Og the caveman noticed his friend Ug didn’t wake back up when he fell asleep from being hit on the head by a rock.

The discovery of even minute amounts of water on Mars will also likely generate some real excitement – not to mention investment – in space exploration, and that creates jobs and spurs technological advancement and gives me something much more interesting and positive to listen to than politicians and zealots could ever dream of.