For those wondering whether or not there is water on Mars, NASA believes it has discovered the answer, as the space agency announced on Monday its confirmation of new evidence provided by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) which not only suggests the existence of water, but the intermittent flow of liquid water on the planet’s surface.
The agency referred to the MRO provided findings as “the strongest evidence yet” of liquid water flowing intermittently on the surface of the Red Planet.
As a precursor to the big announcement, the agency published a press release last Thursday in which it foreshadowed its big announcement with a headline reading: NASA to Announce Mars Mystery Solved.
The discovery was made using the MRO’s imaging spectrometer– a device allowing for the detection of hydrated mineral signatures on the slopes upon which the “mysterious streaks” have been observed on the planet’s surface.
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.
Astronaut John Grunsfeld, an associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, referred to the discovery as a “significant development” which “appears to confirm” the flow of water on present-day Mars.
Our quest on Mars has been to ‘follow the water,’ in our search for life in the universe, and now we have convincing science that validates what we’ve long suspected (…) This is a significant development, as it appears to confirm that water — albeit briny — is flowing today on the surface of Mars.
Georgia Tech’s Lujendra Ojha, lead author of a report on NASA’s findings published earlier today in the journal Nature Geoscience, was quoted by NASA as having said that “the detection of hydrated salts” on the slopes, which are formally known as recurring slope lineae (RSL), indicates water’s “vital role in the formation” of the streaks.
We found the hydrated salts only when the seasonal features were widest, which suggests that either the dark streaks themselves or a process that forms them is the source of the hydration. In either case, the detection of hydrated salts on these slopes means that water plays a vital role in the formation of these streaks
According to Ojha and his co-authors, the spectral signatures come as the result of hydrated minerals known as perchlorates, which have been known to prevent liquid from freezing at temperatures as low as minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit.
As an undergraduate student at the University of Arizona back in 2010, Ojha first noticed the puzzling streaks while examining images from MRO’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE). With the new findings in mind, he claims we now know that “there’s more to the story” than ancient water or frozen water, as the spectral detection “unambiguously supports our liquid water-formation hypotheses for RSL.”
When most people talk about water on Mars, they’re usually talking about ancient water or frozen water (…) Now we know there’s more to the story. This is the first spectral detection that unambiguously supports our liquid water-formation hypotheses for RSL.
Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, offered further confirmation of the findings as he stated that it took several years and multiple spacecraft to solve the mystery, but we now “know there is liquid water on the surface” of the Martian planet.
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.
