Politics & Government

JPL Finds Evidence of Liquid Water on Mars

For the first time, scientists believe they found salty liquid water on the red planet.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has observed possible flowing water during the warmest months on Mars, the space agency announced.

"NASA's Mars Exploration Program keeps bringing us closer to determining whether the Red Planet could harbor life in some form,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden wrote in a prepared statement. “And it reaffirms Mars as an important future destination for human exploration."

During a press conference at NASA Thursday, streamed live on the Internet, scientists announced that this is the closest they have come to finding evidence of what they believe to be liquid water on the planet's surface.

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They described the images as dark, finger-like features that extend down some Martian slopes. The flows begin to appear in late spring, extend through the summer, fade in winter, and return during the next spring.

Reconnaissance Orbiter Project Scientist Richard Zurek of said the dark features are different from other types of Martian slopes.

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Seasonal

From late spring to early fall, the images show flows lengthen and darken on rocky, equator-facing slopes, he wrote in a prepared statement. Because of the seasonality, latitude distribution and changes to brightness, scientists believe a volatile material is involved, but there is no direct detection of one, he added.

Scientists explained that the settings are too warm for carbon-dioxide frost and, in some places, too cold for pure water. This suggests the action of brines, which freeze at lower points. Salt deposits over much of Mars indicate brines were plentiful in the past, scientists said.

'It's a Mystery'

These recent observations suggest brines still may form near the surface today in limited times and places.

"The flows are not dark because of being wet; they are dark for some other reason,'' according to Alfred McEwen, the principal investigator for the orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment and lead author of a report about the recurring flows published in Thursday's edition of the journal Science.

"It's a mystery now, but I think it's a solvable mystery with further observations and laboratory experiments," McEwen said.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C.


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