SKY REPORTER: Mars Fever! I recently read: “NASA to Announce Mars Mystery Solved” and it made my heart beat faster. Had proof of Martian life been found? If not living, breathing, and pumping out methane, at least some solid evidentiary trace from...

SKY REPORTER: Mars Fever!

I recently read: “NASA to Announce Mars Mystery Solved” and it made my heart beat faster. Had proof of Martian life been found? If not living, breathing, and pumping out methane, at least some solid evidentiary trace from eons ago—that could be the greatest scientific discovery ever. However, the heralded news conference September 28, led by James L. Green, director of NASA’s planetary science division, revealed no such evidence. Nevertheless, details were revealed about a place on the red planet where water recently flowed—not the ultimate revelation but perhaps a step in that direction.

For years it’s been known Mars’s atmosphere contains traces of water vapor, and during a five month period in 2008 water ice was found by the Phoenix Laboratory after gently setting down at northern Martian latitude 68.22°. It’s an icy place, whimsically dubbed Green Valley indicating a relatively safe landing site as opposed to a rock strewn, dangerous area for a spacecraft.

Phoenix discovered a frozen water layer five to eighteen centimeters beneath the surface after digging with the laboratory’s robotic arm. Minerals and salts amounting to several percent of the soil’s weight that only could have been formed in water were also identified. At the end of that Martian summer, snow and ice began covering the site and subsequently destroyed the lander’s ability to communicate with Earth.

Despite previous knowledge about water on Mars, recognition of recently flowing water was a big step in our quest for evidence of possible extraterrestrial life. Streaks about 100 yards long, described as “recurring slope lineae, or RSL” are visible on images of Horowitz Crater at 32.04° S 219.36° W. The crater was named after Norman Horowitz, a geneticist at the California Institute of Technology, who designed Pyrolytic Release experiments aboard Viking lander craft that reached Mars in 1976. That mission initiated the first direct analysis of Martian surface properties and specifically looked for biosignatures of microbial life. Initial reports of positive results spurred enduring debate, general denial, and motivation for more direct experimentation.

Read more from the SKY REPORTER

GIF: NASA/JPL

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