Mars: The wet planet!
Nasa claims FLOWING water found for first time
Water is thought to be flowing on the surface of Mars – making it more likely that primitive life may live there, Nasa scientists announced yesterday.
they believe flows of salty water explain mysterious dark streaks that wax and wane on Martian craters.
Such a finding will also make a manned mission to the red planet more viable – Nasa hopes to send one ‘in the near future’.
as water is an essential ingredient for life, the space agency’s announcement means life may exist on our neighbouring planet, the world most similar to earth in the solar system. this would not be ‘little green men’ but much more basic life forms such as simple microbes living in the Martian soil.
Signs of water on Mars have been increasingly reported in recent years – although this is the first credible claim there is liquid, flowing water on the planet’s surface. the discovery could shed light on how life developed on earth.
the strange dark streaks are known as recurring slope lineae. they appear on hills and crater walls during the warmer Martian days, then fade away in the cooler seasons. the streaks were first spotted in photos in 2011 by planetary scientist Lujendra Ojha, who has led research into how they caused them.
He always believed they were produced by salty flowing water – but he said yesterday: ‘Key evidence was missing until now. When most people talk about water on Mars, they’re usually talking about ancient water or frozen water.’
the latest data ‘ unambiguously supports’ the theory that water caused the streaks.
the salt content keeps the water ‘flowing’ despite the low temperatures as it reduces the freezing point. readings from a CRISM spectrometer aboard Nasa’s Mars reconnaissance Orbiter suggest that the streaks are salts – perchlorates – that have absorbed water.
the salts are not found anywhere else on the surrounding terrain – convincing the scientists that the streaks must be formed by flowing salty water.
Similar perchlorate deposits were discovered from the surface of Mars by Nasa’s Phoenix lander in 2008, and Curiosity rover, which is currently roam- ing around an ancient lake bed in Gale Crater.
Michael Meyer, lead scientist for Nasa’s Mars programme, said: ‘these are dark streaks that form in the spring, grow through the summer and then disappear in the fall. It took multiple spacecraft over several years to solve this mystery, and now we know there is liquid water on the surface of this cold, desert planet.
‘It seems that the more we study Mars, the more we learn how life could be supported and where there are resources to support life in the future.’
the source of the water is still a mystery. Scientists said it could be from melting ice, an underground aquifer, water vapour from the thin Martian atmosphere, or some combination of these.
Mars is a cold, barren desert today. But more than three billion years ago it was warmer and wetter, with a thicker atmosphere, rivers and oceans. Much of its water is believed to have evaporated into space, but some remains locked in the polar icecaps and possibly in pockets underground. Mars lacks a protective magnetic shield and so is bombarded with ultraviolet light from the sun that would prove fatal to unprotected life on the surface. But many scientists believe microbes could live underground. Nasa associate administrator and astronaut John Grunsfeld said yesterday: ‘We are going to Mars. Soon I hope we’ll be sending humans to the red planet to explore. Is there life on Mars today? We can answer that by sending probes.’ there has long been speculation that Mars has flowing water. astronomers in the 18th century believed dark lines on the surface were canals. Once this was disproven, it was long believed that Mars had no flowing water for around three billion years. Until samples of the salts are analysed, Nasa’s theory will remain unproven. the scientists said that if their findings are correct, water could be extracted from the salts and plants could be grown on Mars. Carbon dioxide, which plants need to grow, is found in its atmosphere. a favoured idea is to have ‘floating greenhouses’ which would protect the plants from the intense rays of the sun. tim O’Brien, professor of astrophysics at the University of Manchester, said: ‘this is a truly exciting discovery. We have known there are features on the planet which suggest flowing material. was ‘What whetherwe were this not was sure water. about the presence of liquid water increases the possibility that there could be some microbial life forms still on the planet. But in itself it is not evidence for life.