NASA Scientists announced today that there is compelling evidence that liquid water flows on Mars: From NASA:
NASA Images Suggest Water Still Flows in Brief Spurts on Mars
NASA photographs have revealed bright new deposits seen in two gullies on Mars that suggest water carried sediment through them sometime during the past seven years.
“These observations give the strongest evidence to date that water still flows occasionally on the surface of Mars,” said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, Washington.
Image right: A new gully deposit in a crater in the Centauri Montes Region. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems
Liquid water, as opposed to the water ice and water vapor known to exist at Mars, is considered necessary for life. The new findings heighten intrigue about the potential for microbial life on Mars. The Mars Orbiter Camera on NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor provided the new evidence of the deposits in images taken in 2004 and 2005.
“The shapes of these deposits are what you would expect to see if the material were carried by flowing water,” said Michael Malin of Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego. “They have finger-like branches at the downhill end and easily diverted around small obstacles.” Malin is principal investigator for the camera and lead author of a report about the findings published in the journal Science.
Read the whole NASA article.
If scientists expect to find evidence of microbes in liquid water on Mars, it seems now that NASA will have to deploy Mars Diggers, rather than Rovers, to get below the surface and analyze liquid water samples. Also, since the Sun’s rays are weaker on Mars, there is probably not enough heating of the Martian surface to melt ice below. I suspect that there must be subsurface volcanism or some geothermal analogies that liquify Martian ice. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.