NASA finds evidence of flowing water on Mars

NASA finds evidence of flowing water on Mars

PanARMENIAN.Net - Mars appears to have flowing rivulets of water, at least in the summer, scientists reported Monday, September 28, in a finding that boosts the odds of life on the red planet, the Associated Press reports.

"Mars is not the dry, arid planet that we thought of in the past," said Jim Green, director of planetary science for NASA.

Scientists in 2008 confirmed the existence of frozen water on Mars. Now instruments aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have yielded what researchers said is the strongest evidence yet that water in liquid form trickles down certain Martian slopes.

And because liquid water is essential to life, the finding could have major implications for the possibility of microscopic life forms on Earth's next-door neighbor.

"It suggests that it would be possible for there to be life today on Mars," NASA's science mission chief, John Grunsfeld, said at a Washington news conference.

The rivulets — if that's what they are, since the evidence for their existence is indirect — are about 12 to 15 feet wide and 300 feet or more long, scientists said. They apparently consist of wet soil, not standing water.

The water is believed to contain certain salts — not ordinary table salt, but magnesium perchlorate, magnesium chlorate and sodium perchlorate. Like road salt used to melt ice and snow on Earth, such compounds can prevent water from freezing at extremely low temperatures.

That would explain how water could exist in liquid form on Mars, which has an average temperature of minus 81 degrees Fahrenheit.

The evidence of flowing water consists largely of dark, narrow streaks on the surface that tend to appear and grow during the warmest Martian months and fade the rest of the year. The streaks are in places where the temperature is as low as 10 below zero.

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