On Monday NASA announced the amazing results of a new study. According to scientists, salty liquid water flows seasonally on Mars, giving the red planet one of the essential ingredients for life.
The study focuses on the mysterious recurring slope lineae, or RSL — narrow, streaky features on the planet’s surface. The RSL are typically about 15 feet in width or smaller. They appear on slopes during the planet’s warm seasons, and fade during cooler seasons.
Just take a look at photo below. The dark streaks are known as recurring slope lineae and are believed to be evidence of flowing water. The blue color relates to the mineral pyroxene.
NASA has suspected that the RSL are made of salty brine, despite previous analyses of data from the spacecraft’s Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer have found neither salt nor water. The new study is far more detailed!
Researchers led by Lujendra Ojha of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology have found evidence for hydrated salts – magnesium perchlorate, magnesium chlorate and sodium perchlorate. Those compounds lower the freezing point of water, and as result allow it to flow at much cooler temperatures.
“These soggy streaks suggest that there are vast reserves of underground water, presumably the last remains of lakes that may have once dotted the landscapes of this planet,” said Seth Shostak, senior astronomer and director of the Center for SETI Research, who was not involved in the new study.
“Consequently, if life began billions of years ago during Mars’ more clement youth, its progeny could still be hiding out a few feet underfoot,” he said. “That would make the task of finding some red planet biology far easier.”
The researchers write that there is still another mystery to be solved: where the salty brine is coming from. There could be several reasons that the RSL lines are forming – the water is flowing from a local aquifer, melting ice or another source.
Even so, the idea that surface water exists mean that Mars has one of the essential ingredients for life. Now, studies can focus on trying to find out if it’s there.
“To find out whether life has originated on Mars independently of the origin of life on Earth will take a sophisticated robotic mission or a manned mission, either of them carrying the right instruments,” said astronomer Jay Pasachoff of Williams College. “Of course, that would be microscopic life.”
Shostak commented that even microscopic life would have profound implications.
“It would convert the idea that life is a cosmic commonplace from ‘a pleasant hypothesis’ to ‘a very plausible statement,'” he said.
All humanity honors this discovery, even Google created the doodle on its homepage.
Source: Huffingtonpost
The study focuses on the mysterious recurring slope lineae, or RSL — narrow, streaky features on the planet’s surface. The RSL are typically about 15 feet in width or smaller. They appear on slopes during the planet’s warm seasons, and fade during cooler seasons.
Just take a look at photo below. The dark streaks are known as recurring slope lineae and are believed to be evidence of flowing water. The blue color relates to the mineral pyroxene.
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Researchers led by Lujendra Ojha of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology have found evidence for hydrated salts – magnesium perchlorate, magnesium chlorate and sodium perchlorate. Those compounds lower the freezing point of water, and as result allow it to flow at much cooler temperatures.
“These soggy streaks suggest that there are vast reserves of underground water, presumably the last remains of lakes that may have once dotted the landscapes of this planet,” said Seth Shostak, senior astronomer and director of the Center for SETI Research, who was not involved in the new study.
“Consequently, if life began billions of years ago during Mars’ more clement youth, its progeny could still be hiding out a few feet underfoot,” he said. “That would make the task of finding some red planet biology far easier.”
The researchers write that there is still another mystery to be solved: where the salty brine is coming from. There could be several reasons that the RSL lines are forming – the water is flowing from a local aquifer, melting ice or another source.
Even so, the idea that surface water exists mean that Mars has one of the essential ingredients for life. Now, studies can focus on trying to find out if it’s there.
“To find out whether life has originated on Mars independently of the origin of life on Earth will take a sophisticated robotic mission or a manned mission, either of them carrying the right instruments,” said astronomer Jay Pasachoff of Williams College. “Of course, that would be microscopic life.”
Shostak commented that even microscopic life would have profound implications.
“It would convert the idea that life is a cosmic commonplace from ‘a pleasant hypothesis’ to ‘a very plausible statement,'” he said.
All humanity honors this discovery, even Google created the doodle on its homepage.
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Source: Huffingtonpost
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