Does Water Mean Life On Mars?
On Monday, September 28, NASA announced that they found something on Mars—that they were "solving the mysteries of Mars," but what they found was much bigger. Their discovery could change our view of the universe forever.
If you're not a NASA scientist, then you've probably never heard of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, or the MRO. For six years, the MRO has been circling the red planet, taking pictures and recording data, with no major return on investment. Until now. During those six years, the MRO had taken images using the on-board spectrometer, which measures how much light can pass through an object. Researchers and scientists examined the images and found mysterious streaks all over Mars. For years, they assumed these were caused by running water, but couldn't prove it. It wasn't until Lujendra Ojha, an undergrad from the Georgia Institute of Technology, created a program that combined the spectrometer and high-resolution imagery to determine that these streaks were actually rivers. Rivers on Mars. Well, sort-of. What they found were hydrated minerals known as perchlorates, kind of like salt water. These perchlorates give off a certain signature that Ojha's program could distinguish and define as salt water, but enough about MROs and perchlorates. Let's talk about aliens
NASA has said that the search for life on other planets starts with water. Now that there's water, can we expect to find little green men on the red planet? NASA's associate administrator for science, John Grunsfield, told reporters of Nature Geoscience, "[the signatures] suggest that it would be possible for life to be on Mars today. However," he continues, "if I were a microbe on Mars, I would probably not live near these sites. I would want to live further north or south, quite far under the surface and where there's more of a freshwater glacier." So, for now, there's probably no Martians swimming in these rivers. Who knows, maybe there is life, at a microbial level, somewhere on Mars. We just have to find it.
