NASA finds signs of "flowing water on Mars"

[mykittyhasaboner]

NASA has said that its scientists had discovered fresh evidence that water is flowing on Mars during its warmest months, raising the likelihood that life could exist on the red planet.

Recently analyzed images from the NASA Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has circled the planet, show dark finger-like features that extend down some Martian slopes during late spring through summer, and fade in the winter.


"This is the best evidence we have to date of a liquid water occurring today on Mars," said Philip Christensen, geophysicist at Arizona State University, in a NASA panel announcing the findings on Thursday.


NASA scientists believe that if flowing, liquid water exists on Mars, it would be highly salty. That would explain why it would not freeze in the planet's cold temperatures.


"It is more like a syrup, maybe, in how it flows," said Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona, principal investigator for the NASA orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment.


The briny, flowing Martian water [if it exists] could be "rather different than pure water," said McEwen, lead author of a report on evidence of water flows on Mars published in the Thursday edition of the journal Science.

Lisa Pratt, a bio-geochemist at Indiana University who was on the NASA panel discussing the results, said the findings were significant.


"It is our first chance to see an environment on Mars that might allow for the expression of an active biological process, if there is present-day life on Mars," she said.


NASA first found evidence of water on Mars more than a decade ago, but earlier indications were that it would be mostly frozen and concentrated at the poles.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2011/08/201184225954832856.html

[gendoikari]

are they sure this isn't just the carbon dioxide melting?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

are they sure this isn't just the carbon dioxide melting?

That's what I was thinking as well. I remember reading that there's a bit of a debate between planetary scientists over that, although I don't know if we have found any conclusive evidence either way.

[piet11111]

Then lets send a probe !

If NASA can afford one :rolleyes:

[Dr Mindbender]

Then lets send a probe !

If NASA can afford one :rolleyes:
nah i reckon Mars belongs to China now.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Here's what ScienceDaily had to say about it:

Water Flowing On Mars, NASA Spacecraft Data Suggest

ScienceDaily (Aug. 4, 2011) — Observations from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have revealed possible flowing water during the warmest months on Mars.

"NASA's Mars Exploration Program keeps bringing us closer to determining whether the Red Planet could harbor life in some form," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said, "and it reaffirms Mars as an important future destination for human exploration."

Dark, finger-like features appear and extend down some Martian slopes during late spring through summer, fade in winter, and return during the next spring. Repeated observations have tracked the seasonal changes in these recurring features on several steep slopes in the middle latitudes of Mars' southern hemisphere.

"The best explanation for these observations so far is the flow of briny water," said Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona, Tucson. McEwen is the principal investigator for the orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) and lead author of a report about the recurring flows published in the journal Science.

Some aspects of the observations still puzzle researchers, but flows of liquid brine fit the features' characteristics better than alternate hypotheses. Saltiness lowers the freezing temperature of water. Sites with active flows get warm enough, even in the shallow subsurface, to sustain liquid water that is about as salty as Earth's oceans, while pure water would freeze at the observed temperatures.

"These dark lineations are different from other types of features on Martian slopes," said Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project Scientist Richard Zurek of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Repeated observations show they extend ever farther downhill with time during the warm season."

The features imaged are only about 0.5 to 5 yards or meters wide, with lengths up to hundreds of yards. The width is much narrower than previously reported gullies on Martian slopes. However, some of those locations display more than 1,000 individual flows. Also, while gullies are abundant on cold, pole-facing slopes, these dark flows are on warmer, equator-facing slopes.

The images show flows lengthen and darken on rocky equator-facing slopes from late spring to early fall. The seasonality, latitude distribution and brightness changes suggest a volatile material is involved, but there is no direct detection of one. The settings are too warm for carbon-dioxide frost and, at some sites, too cold for pure water. This suggests the action of brines, which have lower freezing points. Salt deposits over much of Mars indicate brines were abundant in Mars' past. These recent observations suggest brines still may form near the surface today in limited times and places.

When researchers checked flow-marked slopes with the orbiter's Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM), no sign of water appeared. The features may quickly dry on the surface or could be shallow subsurface flows.

"The flows are not dark because of being wet," McEwen said. "They are dark for some other reason."

A flow initiated by briny water could rearrange grains or change surface roughness in a way that darkens the appearance. How the features brighten again when temperatures drop is harder to explain.

"It's a mystery now, but I think it's a solvable mystery with further observations and laboratory experiments," McEwen said.

These results are the closest scientists have come to finding evidence of liquid water on the planet's surface today. Frozen water, however has been detected near the surface in many middle to high-latitude regions. Fresh-looking gullies suggest slope movements in geologically recent times, perhaps aided by water. 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.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory operates HiRISE. The camera was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo. Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., provided and operates CRISM. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

For more information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mro and http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/.

Journal Reference:

1. Alfred S. McEwen, Lujendra Ojha, Colin M. Dundas, Sarah S. Mattson, Shane Byrne, James J. Wray, Selby C. Cull, Scott L. Murchie, Nicolas Thomas, Virginia C. Gulick. Seasonal Flows on Warm Martian Slopes. Science, 2011; 333 (6043): 740-743 DOI: 10.1126/science.1204816 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1204816)

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110804142118.htm

[Pretty Flaco]

nah i reckon Mars belongs to China now.

well it is the "red planet" ya know.

[La Comédie Noire]

Well it is a re--


well it is the "red planet" ya know.

d'ohhh :mellow:

[Dr Mindbender]

well it is the "red planet" ya know.

well i was thinking more cause they and india are the only countries y'know, not cripplingly slashing their space exploration budgets, but whatever its the "red planet" hurrr durrr.
:rolleyes:

[bcbm]

lighten up man:rolleyes:

[Dr Mindbender]

lighten up man:rolleyes:
who says im not lightened up.

Damn these transatlantic humour misunderstandings.

[Q]

Wouldn't water also melt at much lower temperatures on Mars due to the fact it has such a low atmospheric pressure?

[Lenina Rosenweg]

who says im not lightened up.

Damn these transatlantic humor misunderstandings.

Corrected!

[Revolutionair]

WTB more science and less bad jokes.

[Seresan]

If there IS flowing water on Mars, and if it has any sort of life that we can understand living in it whatsoever, I'm going to see what I can do about changing my citizenship to 'Martian'

[OhYesIdid]

well it is the "red planet" ya know.

What's that got to do with China?

[Q]

Wouldn't water also melt at much lower temperatures on Mars due to the fact it has such a low atmospheric pressure?

Does anyone know?

[Lynx]

See triple point (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_point) of water. Hellas Planitia is the only area above the triple point on Mars.

[Dr Mindbender]

See triple point (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_point) of water. Hellas Planitia is the only area above the triple point on Mars.

The summit of Olympus Mons is the highest point in the Solar System.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

The summit of Olympus Mons is the highest point in the Solar System.

Relevance? I'm pretty sure that Mars' atmosphere is too insubstantial to support liquid water well below that height.

The triple point of water is at 0.01 °C temperature and 0.0060373 atm pressure.

The surface temperature of Mars typically varies from about -150 °C to a balmy -10 °C, although there could be further extremes in either direction.

The atmospheric pressure of Mars is highly variable, from a barely-there 0.0002 atm at the top of Olympus Mons, to a more substantial 0.0113 atm in the depths of Hellas Planitia.

This means that in order for there to be liquid water on Mars, there must be other factors at play, such as the presence of salts (as mentioned in the article), unsually warm microclimates, and possibly geothermal activity.

I'm pretty sure Lynx meant to write below, because Hellas Planitia is one of the lowest areas of elevation on Mars.

[Dr Mindbender]

I'm pretty sure Lynx meant to write below, because Hellas Planitia is one of the lowest areas of elevation on Mars.

Sure i took him literally. Didnt occur to me it was a typo.

[Lynx]

Sure i took him literally. Didnt occur to me it was a typo.
It was laziness. Hellas Planitia is the only area on Mars where atmospheric pressure is above the triple point. It's latitude is unfavourable though, a site close to the equator might expect to have higher temperatures.
I'm wondering if there is an adiabatic effect within the Hellas basin, or would it be negligible with such low air pressure.