Gallery: NASA Discovers Evidence for Liquid Water on Mars
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The brown splotchy areas in this shot of Mars’ Hale Crater are salt deposits formed by flowing liquid water, NASA scientists recently announced. That Day-Glo blue stuff is pyroxene, a common mineral on Mars.
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Drippy lineae on Mars’ Horowitz crater. Not the flowing water itself, but its evaporated deposits--the Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter only observes the surface at 3pm every day, when conditions are too hot for liquid water.
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NASA scientists analyzed spectral data of the briny formations and found water molecules embedded within the salt crystals—a telltale sign that flowing water formed the deposits.
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These 100 meter-long streaks, called “recurring slope lineae,” are composed of magnesium perchlorate, magnesium chlorate and sodium perchlorate, and form every Martian summer on slopes all over the planet.
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Lineae on the walls of Garni crater, hundreds of meters long. Scientists aren’t yet sure where all the water is coming from--possibilities include the atmosphere, aquifers, or melting ice within the planet.
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The liquid water that formed the lineae on the warm slopes of Coprates Chasma, near the equator, was stabilized by the salts on Mars’ surface that prevented it from boiling or freezing.
