NASA and the European space station are now searching for water sources on asteroids near Mars to help support exploration, and combat the prohibitive cost of sending water supplies into space.
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“Mars is not the dry, arid planet that we thought of in the past”, director of planetary science Jim Green told reporters at NASA’s Washington D.C. headquarters.
Earlier in 2008, scientists had confirmed finding frozen water on planet Mars.
With The Martian topping bestseller lists and a movie adaptation hitting cinemas this week, people are even more excited than usual about NASA’s big Mars announcement – but what scientists have discovered is way, way cooler than Matt Damon in a spacesuit. NASA scientists likened the ability of these salts to maintain liquid water on the frigid Martian surface to the use of salt on Earth to liquify icy roads.
The rovers searching the planet’s surface have also found that the soil is much more moist than anticipated.
The detection of hydrated salts on these slopes means that water plays a vital role in the formation of these streaks. The discovery raises the possibility that alien life now thrive on the Red Planet.
Lujendra Ojha, the lead author of the report, first identified the RSL streaks when he was an undergraduate student analyzing images from the MRO’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment.
Dark, narrow 100-meter-long streaks on Mars inferred to have been formed by contemporary flowing water are seen in an image produced by NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of Arizona.
Scientists have found water on Mars, making experts think it’s possible more on this front is to come.
Mary Beth Wilhelm of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. and the Georgia Institute of Technology said the evidence of salty water could have major implications.
Mars was previously thought to only have water on its surface in the form of ice at its poles.
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With several missions to Mars already in the planning stages, the question of whether there’s life on the planet is now “a concrete one we can answer”, Grunsfeld said.
