Scientists Find Liquid Water On Mars
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- Mystery solved. There is liquid water on the Mars.
Scientists reported Monday they found definitive signs of water on the Red Planet, essential for life, and speculate the planet could sustain life even now.
NASA was set to confirm the findings published in the journal Nature Geoscience. There was a highly-anticipated announcement scheduled for 11:30 a.m. ET.
Data analysis of high-res images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter revealed dark streaks on the Martian surface resulting from briny water flowing across the surface of the planet.
Researchers identified various salts -- sulfates, chlorides and perchlorates -- that "can lower the freezing point of water... thus increasing the possibility of forming and stabilizing liquid water on the surface of present day Mars."
"That's a direct detection of water in the form of hydration of salts," said University of Arizona Professor of Planetary Geology Alfred S. McEwen, one of the three scientists who authored the study. He told the New York Times "There pretty much has to have been liquid water recently present to produce the hydrated salt."
He said water could have been present as recently as a matter of "days." The study says the water flows during the summer months.
Researchers posit three possible sources of the water -- subsurface ice, salt in the soil absorbing water from the atmosphere, or liquid from an aquifer.
Last March, NASA said Mars may have once had a sea the size of the Atlantic Ocean.
CBSSF.com writer, producer Jan Mabry is also executive producer and host of The Bronze Report. She lives in Northern California. Follow her on Twitter @janmabr.
