“It’s possible microbial life could still be there underneath the surface, and robotic missions have been gathering data to support the theory there could be microbes alive on the planet”, the physicist from Imperial College said in an interview with the Telegraph. The space agency called the results “a major science finding”.
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The discovery “confirms that water is playing a role in these features”, said Alfred McEwen, a planetary scientist with the University of Arizona.
“It’s only when these streaks are biggest and widest that we see evidence for molecular water”, says Lujendra Ojha, a graduate student at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
A team from the United States and France said it found evidence in the lines of “hydrated” salt minerals, which require water for their creation.
But the discovery of flowing water on cold, seemingly barren Mars could herald a breakthrough in the search for life there – past or present. According to the scientists behind the finding, this may change many things regarding the finding of life on the planet.
Ten years ago, they sent up a camera with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
“When most people talk about water on Mars, they’re usually talking about ancient water or frozen water”, Ojha said in the news conference.
These dark, narrow, 100 meter-long streaks (called recurring slope lineae) are flowing downhill on Mars, and are inferred to have been formed by contemporary flowing water.
Indeed, NASA has continued scientific research, but the notion of more flight by humans has seemed to be on the back burner. These darkish streaks appear to ebb and flow over time. NASA’s Phoenix lander and Curiosity rover both found them in the planet’s soil, and some scientists believe that the Viking missions in the 1970s measured signatures of these salts. The planet, with a gravity of just 1 percent that of Earth, lost its water, and the extreme cold meant little could live there. “We know there’s water very close to the surface”.
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“For the first time, we have orbital evidence of the agent that has enabled water to flow under on the surface of today’s Mars”, said Michael Meyers, Lead Scientist of the Mars Exploration Program.
