Life on Mars? NASA: 'Liquid water exists on Mars,' raises hope for life
On Monday, NASA scientists announced that life-giving water still flows across Mars' surface every now and then, the revelation further boosting hopes of life beyond Earth.
The discovery is still not enough evidence that life is indeed existing on Mars either in the past or sometime in the future, but it has raised hopes that the landscape could offer a breeding ground of microbes to somehow continue existence and it also gives more reason for humans to one day travel to the planet.
John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA said, "The existence of liquid water, even if it is super salty briny water, gives the possibility that if there's life on Mars, that we have a way to describe how it might survive."
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While it has been suspected for quite some time that dark streaks on the Red Planet's surface are associated with liquid water, NASA researchers have now confirmed the belief by studying the shots from an imager aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
According to the investigation by the researchers, streaks absorb light at a number of specific wavelengths linked to chemicals that are long known to be pulling water from the Martian atmosphere. The process is called deliquescense, Lujendra Ojha said, the Georgia Tech doctoral student who first discovered the streaks in 2011.
While the chemicals help keep the liquid water from vaporizing in Mars' thin atmosphere, they also keep the water liquid at lower temperatures.
According to CNN, the discovery has become a breakthrough in the search for life on Mars, but the researchers remain uncertain where the water comes from.
For many years, researchers have been convinced that water exists on Mars as it has been discovered in the past that frozen water is present at the planet's poles and tiny puddles can be found on the surface.
Other clues that could add evidence that life could have or may still host life includes the detection of methane on the surface, as well as other chemical signatures that suggest the possibility of life that existed or continues to exist on Martian grounds.
