In a major finding, NASA scientists confirmed Monday that they found potential signs of water on Mars.
“Mars is not the dry, arid planet we thought of in the past,” said Jim Green, director of planetary headquarters at NASA. “Under certain circumstances, liquid water has been found on Mars.”
Scientists say they didn’t find actual lakes or streams, but did find salts that appear to store water. Scientists also found that there is more humidity in the air of the planet and soil, and said Mars had a lot of water millions of years ago.
“If we go back 3 million years, it had a huge ocean,” said Green. The ocean was perhaps a mile deep, he added.
But Mars had a major climate change and lost its surface water, he added. It is unclear what triggered that change.
Salt held the key to determining whether there was water on the planet. Scientists used instruments on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to analyze streaks in the planet called recurring slope lineae and found that salts in those streaks were hydrated.
The slopes were “formed by liquid water on Mars,” said Mary Beth Wilhelm, of NASA’s Ames Research Center.
But scientists said that this doesn’t mean they found any Martians. Instead, the locations of liquid water leads to good places to start looking, scientists said.
