14 DAY TRIAL // Astronomers believe that liquid water flows on the surface of Mars. Recent observations conducted by a NASA spacecraft indicate that briny (salty) water flows develop on the Red Planet during the warmest months of the year.
The NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has been conducting studies of the planet's surface for many years, and its datasets are the primary information that informed the new conclusions.
Experts say that the water flows left significant traces in the geological record, that are even visible from orbit. MRO also carries extremely sensitive instruments that are capable of imaging Mars at great resolution, experts add.
The announcement related to the new finding was made yesterday, after experts at NASA called for a press briefing. Even Charles Bolden, the space agency's Administrator, issued a statement on the issue.
“NASA's Mars Exploration Program keeps bringing us closer to determining whether the Red Planet could harbor life in some form and it reaffirms Mars as an important future destination for human exploration,” the top official explained
For the new research, experts focused their attention on certain slopes on the surface of Mars, which appeared to contain finger-like features. The latter would develop during spring and summer, face away in the winter, and then reappear the next spring.
Such analyses have only been made possible by the fact that instruments such as the MRO can remain airborne for may years, providing baseline and variation measurements. The orbiter only found seasonal slope features at middle latitudes in the southern hemisphere.
“The best explanation for these observations so far is the flow of briny water,” says the principal investigator for the MRO High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) instrument, Alfred McEwen. The expert is based at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
He is also the lead author of a new report detailing the flows, which appears in the August 4 online issue of the top journal Science. The expert says that none of the alternate hypotheses experts set forth can explain the observations better than briny water.
There is no possible way for liquid freshwater to flow on Mars, experts say. Temperatures on our neighboring planet are very low even during the summer, so the only way for water to remain liquid below 0 degrees Celsius is for it to be mixed with salts.
“Fresh-looking gullies suggest slope movements in geologically recent times, perhaps aided by water,” a NASA press release explains.
“Purported droplets of brine also appeared on struts of the Phoenix Mars Lander. If further study of the recurring dark flows supports evidence of brines, these could be the first known Martian locations with liquid water,” it concludes.