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Ned Potter is the science correspondent for ABC's "World News with Charles Gibson." He has reported on such topics as space exploration, the human genome and climate change.
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Water on Mars--Today
December 06, 2006 2:55 PM
"Follow the Water." For years that was NASA's mantra for Mars. Today it's cold and bone-dry, they said, but once it was warm and wet. Follow the water--or the signs that it once flowed there--and you may find evidence that millions of years ago, Mars may have been a good place for life.
Today NASA says they've hit pay dirt. The pun is fitting. Having culled through the 240,000 images sent by Mars Global Surveyor, which has been orbiting Mars since 1997, they found two spots where water appears to have flowed within the last decade.
Here's their evidence: first, a picture of the side of a crater, shot by Global Surveyor in 1999. Uphill is toward the upper left; the crater floor is to the lower right.
Now, here's the same spot in 2005.
The white streak, say the scientists, is the smoking gun...or, one quips, the "squirting gun." They saw much the same thing in another crater wall far away.
“We are talking about liquid water that is present on Mars right now," said Ken Edgett, the scientist who culled through the images, at a briefing that finished a little while ago.
"It could be acidic water, it could be briny water, it could be water carrying all types of sediment, it could be slushy--but H2O is involved."
It's quite possible, they concede, that the ship photographed a couple of rockslides--but more likely, they argue, water from underground aquifers has come spurting through the sides of craters, and flowed downhill before it evaporated in the wispy Martian air.
Why does this matter? Mainly because life as we know it depends on liquid water. If the theory of the escaping water holds up, fans of life on Mars have had a very good day.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab has posted a lot more HERE, including a slide show HERE.
December 6, 2006 | Permalink | User Comments (6)
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Absolutely fascinating! Here's hoping that Mars isn't subject to climate change, at least until we can verify what we suspect!
Posted by: chuck | Dec 6, 2006 3:17:33 PM
You can also see a series of coencentric rings around the origin of the "seep", suggesting that the ground may have been swelling in the first picture and burst in the second picture.
Neat!
Posted by: Tim D. | Dec 6, 2006 5:15:19 PM
Might it not also be fine-grained dust drifting in the windstorms, then "flowing" when the wind stops? Do they really know it's water of some kind?
Posted by: Andy | Dec 7, 2006 11:47:34 AM
great this is'nt true is it tell me itsnot beacause were the only special planet
Posted by: sahira | Dec 7, 2006 1:36:34 PM
There has been compelling evidence of liquid water on Mars for many years now - flowing down crater walls and hills...some even pooling, from the raw MALIN/NASA images. They have also shown some sort of "trees" as well. Simliar to our own banyan trees in the deserts of Earth. Sir Arthur C. Clarke has even commented on them.
How aggravating it is to encounter individuals who still maintain a hard grasp on old and antiquainted teachings about Mars...being a cold, dry and dead world. News like this shakes them up and makes them re-evaluate. Not a comfortable place to be. I guess until they can take a cool refreshing Martian drink, they will always be skeptical. Too bad.
I'm glad that NASA has finally announced the news of flowing water on Mars, and it's just a matter of time - of evidence from biological fingerprints. There is already an increase in methane in the atmosphere...could it be Martian critters?
Just a matter of time.
Respectfully,
Chicago Astronomer Joe
Administrator
www.chicagoastronomer.com
Telescope/Observatory Operator
Adler Planetarium
Posted by: Chicago Astronomer Joe | Dec 8, 2006 6:40:15 AM
There are also other interesting theories that need to be explored. I think most astronomers agree that, at one time, the atmosphere of Mars was more dense ... that in the past, life on the Martian surface was more possible than it is now. However, if an intelligent civilization found it increasingly difficult to live on the Martian surface, it's entirely possible that such a civilization relocated itself underground. Water is the issue. And if this visible water came from aquifers (underground sources), it makes it even more possible that life could exist beneath the surface.
We could send surface probes to Mars until NASA is blue in the face. But it might be akin to an alien civilization sending a probe to Earth that lands in the middle of the Sahara Desert ... and then throwing up their hands and saying, "Well, I guess there's no life on Earth." It might be time to transcend the idea of "Mars rovers" and think about sending up "Mars diggers." Who knows what these "diggers" might find.
Posted by: J. Alec West | Dec 14, 2006 5:09:00 PM
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