Water could have flowed on the surface of Mars despite its below-freezing temperatures with the help of salts in the Martian soil that can melt ice, a new study has found.
In chambers that mimic Mars’ conditions, University of Michigan researchers have shown how small amounts of liquid water could form on the planet.
Liquid water is an essential ingredient for life as we know it. Mars is one of the very few places in the solar system where scientists have seen promising signs of it - in gullies down crater rims, in instrument readings, and in Phoenix spacecraft self portraits that appeared to show wet beads on the lander’s leg several years ago.
No one has directly detected liquid water beyond Earth, though. The experiments are among the first to test theories about how it could exist in a climate as cold as Mars’ climate.
The researchers found that a type of salt present in Martian soil can readily melt ice it touches - just like salts do on Earth’s slippery winter walkways and roads.
But this Martian salt cannot, as some scientists suggested, form liquid water by sucking vapour out of the air through a process called deliquescence.
‘For me, the most exciting thing is that I can now understand how the droplets formed on the Phoenix leg,’ said Nilton Renno, who led the research.
In 2008, Renno was the first to notice strange globules in photos Phoenix sent back. Over several weeks, the globules seemed to grow and coalesce. While Renno deemed them water and suggested that salts on the planet’s surface might make it so, many of his colleagues disagreed.
In chambers that mimic Mars’ conditions, University of Michigan researchers have shown how small amounts of liquid water could form on the planet.
Liquid water is an essential ingredient for life as we know it. Mars is one of the very few places in the solar system where scientists have seen promising signs of it - in gullies down crater rims, in instrument readings, and in Phoenix spacecraft self portraits that appeared to show wet beads on the lander’s leg several years ago.
No one has directly detected liquid water beyond Earth, though. The experiments are among the first to test theories about how it could exist in a climate as cold as Mars’ climate.
The researchers found that a type of salt present in Martian soil can readily melt ice it touches - just like salts do on Earth’s slippery winter walkways and roads.
But this Martian salt cannot, as some scientists suggested, form liquid water by sucking vapour out of the air through a process called deliquescence.
‘For me, the most exciting thing is that I can now understand how the droplets formed on the Phoenix leg,’ said Nilton Renno, who led the research.
In 2008, Renno was the first to notice strange globules in photos Phoenix sent back. Over several weeks, the globules seemed to grow and coalesce. While Renno deemed them water and suggested that salts on the planet’s surface might make it so, many of his colleagues disagreed.