Today, NASA finally announced what it billed as a “major” finding regarding a certain Mars mystery.
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Speaking at a televised press conference, John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of the agency’s science mission directorate in Washington DC said: “The really exciting thing about this is our view of Mars has been really about seeking chemical fossils of past life on Mars”.
The rivers stretch to about 300 feet long and 12 to 15 feet wide. They have the property of absorbing atmospheric water and can lower its evaporation rate.
Why does NASA’s water on mars announcement matter?
THE chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one, but the search for martian life has just been boosted with the discovery of a precious, life giving resource – water. “Because it means that this liquid water can be used for perhaps, irrigation, drinking water, and even rocket fuel”.
Further reconnaissance is necessary if NASA plans to find microscopic life on the planet.
The presence of water also expands opportunities for future missions to Mars, possibly including humans. “This is the first spectral detection that unambiguously supports our liquid water-formation hypotheses for RSL”. Scientists noted it could be melting ice, an underground aquifer, water vapor from the thin Martian atmosphere, or some combination. Mars experiences a change of seasons like Earth, and the streaks darken and seem to flow down steep slopes in warm seasons, then fade in cooler seasons.
Researchers have long wondered whether there is flowing water on the martian surface.
If anything, it was likely “wet soil, not free water sitting on the surface”, study co-author Alfred McEwen from the University of Arizona, told AFP.
Present-day Mars is nothing like ancient Mars. Exploration by the Curiosity Rover proves that billions of years ago it was once a planet similar to Earth. In fact, they were spotted in the 1970s, but they were in a different form. The distance varies depending on the time of year and the orbit of the two planets. The latest findings were published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
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“I thought there was no hope”, said Lujendra Ojha, a graduate student at Georgia Institute of Technology and lead author of the scientific paper. Ojha and his colleagues theorized at the time that flowing water was the cause of the streaks.
