Free-flowing water discovered on the equator of Mars

[pErvinalia]

Before it lost its atmosphere Mars was covered with liquid water. There is now evidence that certain areas of the red planet may still have free flowing water during certain times of the year. The results come from Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona and were published in Nature Geosciences.

In 2011, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) provided images that showed dark streaks in the soil in areas near the equator. Though they faded over time, the streaks return at the warmest part of each year. The most likely answer is that there could very well be liquid water flowing on the surface of Mars under certain circumstances; an unprecedented discovery, since the atmosphere is much too thin to retain liquid water for long periods of time.

The trouble is, researchers don’t know enough about Martian geology and composition to definitively say where the water could be coming from. There could be pockets of ice underneath the surface that liquify when warmed, but the emergence pattern of the dark streaks doesn’t seem to suggest that. There is also a possibility that the streaks are caused by water vapor being pulled from the atmosphere and condensed into the soil.

For life as we know it to exist, liquid water is a must. The fact that there is still liquid water on the surface of Mars is very exciting, but space agencies need to proceed carefully. Any probes that visit these potentially watery areas must be completely sterilized which is a complicated and expensive procedure. If there were any traces of Earth microbes on the probe, it could easily contaminate that which it was sent to study. The Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) is part of an international organization that defines good research practices in space and would shut down any mission that did not ensure the utmost of cleanliness for the spacecraft.

http://www.iflscience.com/space/free-fl ... uator-mars

[FBM]

I love these announcements of a discovery in the headline, yet when you read the story it's always "might."

[pErvinalia]

Yep. But it seems like a good probability.

[FBM]

Agreed, but they need to put that shit in the headline.

[JimC]

Sounds like occasional mud patches rather than a gently tinkling stream, but still very interesting...

[JacksSmirkingRevenge]

Sounds like occasional mud patches rather than a gently tinkling stream, but still very interesting...

We'll wake you up when they discover gin & tonic geysers.

[JimC]

Sounds like occasional mud patches rather than a gently tinkling stream, but still very interesting...

We'll wake you up when they discover gin & tonic geysers.

[mistermack]

As the atmosphere is extremely thin on Mars, much thinner than at the top of Everest, and there are no significant water clouds, the nights must be incredibly cold, even at the warmest spot, on the warmest day of the year. If there was liquid water expelled from some kind of hot underground feature, you would expect that it would freeze almost immediately, definitely the first night, and would never thaw again.

There is obviously the chance of salt deposits, if Mars had seas in the distant past. So you could have warm water, saturated with salt, breaking the surface. So I guess it's possible.

[mistermack]

It seems a bit ironic for them to take so much trouble to sterilise equipment sent to Mars, but at the same time, to have the ambition of sending people to Mars.

That puts another obstacle in the way of landing people on Mars. They will need to find out for sure, whether Mars has Microbes or not, BEFORE they land a man on it.

Otherwise, they will never know for sure whether Mars had microbial life before we landed on it, because anything they find after could just be something that we took with us.

And if they DO find microbes on Mars, does that mean that we shouldn't send people there, till we know everything there is to know about them? That could take forever.

[laklak]

Sounds like occasional mud patches rather than a gently tinkling stream, but still very interesting...

We'll wake you up when they discover gin & tonic geysers.

I read that as "gin and tonic oysters" and thought - hey! There's an idea...