NASA Confirms Water on Mars!

Dear Commons Community,

NASA scientists as a news conference today reported that Mars appears to be flowing with rivulets of salty water, a finding that boosts the odds of life on the red planet.  As reported in the Associated Press:

“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 news conference.

Scientists in 2008 confirmed the existence of frozen water on Mars. Now instruments aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have yielded the strongest evidence yet that salt water in liquid form trickles down certain Martian slopes each summer, according to the researchers.

“Mars is not the dry, arid planet that we thought of in the past,” said Jim Green, director of planetary science for NASA. “Under certain circumstances, liquid water has been found on Mars.”

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.

“What we’re dealing with is wet soil, thin layers of wet soil, not standing water,” said Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona at Tucson, the principal scientist for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s high-resolution imaging experiment.

McEwen said he, for one, believes the possibility of life on Mars to be “very high,” though it would be microbial and somewhere in the Martian crust.”

Congratulations NASA!

Tony

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