NASA Confirms Flowing Water On Mars

NASA scientists have for the first time confirmed liquid water flowing on the surface of the Red Planet, Mars. Scientists said that it is a potential breakthrough in search for life on Mars and this has risen hope of travelling to the planet some day.

The new discovery has thrilled everybody. James L.Green, the director of NASA’s planetary science division in a news conference says, “This is tremendously exciting. We haven’t been able to answer the question, ‘Does life exist beyond Earth?’ But following the water is a critical element of that. We now have, I think, great opportunities in the right locations on Mars to thoroughly investigate that.” Liquid water is one of the key ingredients for existence of life. Its presence raises questions on the dry and barren looking Mars that the planet could posses niches of habitability for microbial Martians.

Streams on the Martian surface, shot by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2011.

This is not the first discovery of water on Mars though. In 2011, a high-resolution camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured photos which looked like streams flowing down the crater walls. The mission scientists unwilling to assume too much with this discovery named these flows as “recurring slope lineae” or RSL. Lujendra Ojha, a graduate student at Georgia Institute of Technology was the first one to discover these streaks. His findings from using a spectrometer on the orbiter identified types of molecules by which colours of light the streams absorb.

Writing for the journal Nature Geosciences, Mr. Ojha’s team describes how they found infra-red signatures for hydrated salts when the dark flows were present. The hydrated salts are a mixture of chlorates and perchlorates and were inspected at four different sites on the Martian surface. Scientists are asking main question is where is this water coming from. Dr. McEwen, a planetary geologist says that there are two basic origins for the water: from above or from below. The perchlorates might be acting like a sponge, absorbing moisture out of the air or the other possibility is underground aquifers, frozen during winter, melting during summer and seeping to the surface.

Two streaks have been identified on the mountain in Gale Crater which currently NASA’s Curiosity rover is exploring. NASA and the Curiosity team could decide to approach the streaks without driving onto them, or simply observe from a distance. The rover is still probably a couple of years away.