Water discovered on Mars, but is there life too on the planet?

NASA mission an important breakthrough.

By Dileep Thekkethil

The question about whether water is exclusive to Earth has been answered as researchers have found liquid water running down the surface of planet Mars during summer months, increasing the possibility of existence of some form of life on the red planet.

According to the scientists, liquid water flows down the craters and high terrains of Mars, making trails on its surface that last hundreds of kilometres. The water flows only during the summer months as it disappears during the autumn due to drop in the surface temperature.

James L. Green, the director of NASA’s planetary science division, said, “This is tremendously exciting. We haven’t been able to answer the question, ‘Does life exist beyond Earth?’ But following the water is a critical element of that. We now have, I think, great opportunities in the right locations on Mars to thoroughly investigate that.”

Images taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show trails of water trickling down the high cliffs, valleys and craters, making unusual patterns that resemble the lava trails found on Earth.

As of now, scientists at NASA have no solid answer for the origin of water, but they are of the assumption that it could be from the ice or salt aquifers beneath the surface of mars that rise up during the summer season to its thin atmosphere.

Michael Meyer, the lead scientist on NASA’s Mars exploration program told The Guardian “There is liquid water today on the surface of Mars. Because of this, we suspect that it is at least possible to have a habitable environment today.”

The water evidence found in Mars could help future missions to collect the samples and conduct further analysis of its compound. It could also become one of the most favored landing spots in the future manned mission if water can be collected naturally.

The new finding has rewritten our concept of Mars which was earlier considered as a dry and arid planet. Even though some earlier missions to Mars revealed traces of liquid on the red planet, they failed to provide evidence to corroborate the findings. Earlier this year, NASA found evidence of an ocean in the northern hemisphere, which disappeared in the distant past.

Scientists found signs of hydrated salt at four locations in Mars that disappeared along with the trails, hinting that it is definitely some sort of liquid water. The researchers found this by using a secondary instrument aboard Reconnaissance Orbiter that analyse the chemistry of the mysterious trails found on Mars.

Lujendra Ojha of Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta along with his colleagues used the spectrometer on the Reconnaissance Orbiter to study the infrared beams reflected from the steep mountains and craters during the summer season.

Alfred McEwen, a planetary geologist at the University of Arizona and senior author on the study was quoted by The Guardian saying, “These may be the best places to search for extant life near the surface of Mars. While it would be very important to find evidence of ancient life, it would be difficult to understand the biology. Current life would be much more informative.”

Even though NASA’s robotic explorers are in Mars, they cannot move to any of these locations as they might be carrying microbial that might contaminate the life form if it exists in mars. As of now NASA doesn’t have a sterilized spacecraft that can inspect the current locations. The mission scheduled for 2020 is not be sterilized either. This means that NASA has to make a new spacecraft with electronics and systems that can withstand the heat of baking.