“Mars is not the arid, dry planet we thought it was in the past”, announced Dr. Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA.
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Scientists developed a new technique to analyze chemical maps of the Martian surface obtained by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft. The streaks seemed to show up in warm seasons – when temperatures are above minus-10 degrees Fahrenheit – and fade as the seasons cooled.
As it turns out, scientists now believe that the mysterious streaks, which disappear and reappear based on the temperature, are likely the result of water being wicked up to the surface from a shallow subsurface flow.
Hydrated salts on these slopes at Horowitz crater The 100-meter-long streaks.
“I thought there was no hope”, Lujendra Ojha, a graduate student at Georgia Institute of Technology and lead author of a paper in this week’s issue of the journal Nature Geoscience, told Reuters. The seasonal rivers of salty water mean there’s a greater chance of Mars being able to support life now or in the future.
“When you look at Earth, water is a central ingredient”, said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program.
Mars appears to be flowing with rivulets of salty water, at least in the summer, scientists reported Monday in a finding that boosts the odds of life on the red planet.
“There’s no credible evidence that life has existed on Mars or does, but if water has been there, there’s always that possibility that at one time or maybe even now”, Cupillari said.
Ojah added that chemical signatures of water were found in the crystals of salt samples.
Dr. Paul Buchanan, Geology Professor at Kilgore College says the recent announcement is a significant find. The next mystery to solve is where exactly this water flow is coming from – it could be bubbling up from underneath the crust, or it could be created by some kind of condensation process in the atmosphere of Mars.
“It’s a big piece of information, a big piece of the puzzle that we didn’t have before that we do have today”, Cassibry said.
Instruments aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have found that rivers of salt water flow down Martian hills in the summer.
“The existence of liquid water gives the possibility that, if there is life on Mars, we have a way to describe how it might survive”, he said.
John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA, said the discovery may prove to be a sign of life. “But something has happened to Mars, it lost its water”.
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What we know about one of the planets next door has come a long way. “Water may be an important resource for future explorers and may decrease the cost and increase the activity of humans on the planet”.
