The hunt for water on Mars...

[Rick]

The hunt for water on Mars goes nanoscale

If space, as Douglas Adams said, is mind-bogglingly big and the nanoscale is mind-bogglingly small, it seems incongruous to hear that Swiss scientists are going to use the latter, in the form of atomic force microscopy, to explore the former.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/31/nano_mars/

[mickw]

In a blow to hopes for finding water and life on Mars, scientists think bright streaks detected inside Martian gullies after 1999 were not spurts of water, but rather avalanches of dust.
Water is thought to have covered much of Mars in the past, but whether or not the life-giving substance has shown up in the recent past is a matter of debate among scientists.

More:  http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080229-mars-no-water.html

[Rick]

Large volumes of water ice have probably been detected below Mars' surface, far from the planet's polar ice caps, scientists have said.

The Sharad radar experiment, on Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spacecraft made the discovery in Mars' mid-northern latitudes.

The ice is found in distinctive geological structures on Mars' surface that are hundreds of metres thick.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7294767.stm

[Rick]

A Nasa space probe has discovered a new category of minerals spread across large regions of Mars.

The find suggests liquid water remained on Mars' surface a billion years later than scientists had previously thought.

The US Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spacecraft found evidence of hydrated silica, better known as opal.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7696669.stm

[Rick]

A NASA space probe orbiting Mars has discovered deposits of opals in the mighty Valles Marineris canyon system* east of Tharsis. Opals aren't valuable enough to justify interplanetary trade, but the discovery is significant as it suggests that liquid water existed on Mars a billion years more recently than had been thought.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/29/mars_opal_discovery/

[Rick]

Mars appears to have had running water on its surface about one million years ago, according to new evidence.

Images from a Nasa spacecraft orbiting the Red Planet show fan-shaped gullies on the surface which seem to be about 1.25 million years old, the study says.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7919113.stm

[Rick]

American astrogeologists believe that there may be pockets of liquid water trapped in sediment layers beneath the slopes of Olympus Mons - the titanic 15-mile-high Martian volcano, three times as high as Mount Everest. Such underground ponds or puddles might be home, they speculate, to strange alien lifeforms.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/05/olympus_mons_warm_pond_life/

[mickw]

During its more than five-month stint on Mars last year, NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander found evidence that liquid water existed at the spacecraft's landing site, some Phoenix team members say.
The new but controversial conclusion comes from observations of a set of "little globules" attached to struts on the lander's legs that were photographed by Phoenix's robotic arm camera over the course of the mission, as first reported at Spaceflight Now.

More:    http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090310-phoenix-water.html

[Rick]

Pools of salty water might be able to exist just below the surface of Mars, planetary scientists believe.

Researchers previously thought water existed largely as ice or as vapour on Mars, because of the low temperatures and atmospheric pressure.

But Nasa's Phoenix lander has shown the presence in Martian soil of perchlorate salts, which can keep water liquid at temperatures of minus 70C.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7958471.stm

[Rick]

Scientists say the possible discovery of mud volcanoes on Mars could boost the search for the planet's past life.

If life ever existed on Mars, the evidence could be buried deep below the surface, where it may be warm enough for water to remain in a liquid state.

Mud volcanoes could transport rocks from depths of several kilometres up to the surface, where robotic explorers could reach them.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7966437.stm

[Ian]

I wonder if any exobiologists have considered the impact of perchlorates in martian mud, if there is such a thing. Perchlorates are oxidisers in the right environment. I wonder if that would preclude the possibility of life, based on earth type biology, which is implied by the search for water. Perchlorates are weedkillers.

[Rick]

Large deposits of nearly pure water-ice may lurk just below the Martian surface, much nearer the equator than previously thought, suggest new images.

The pictures acquired by a Nasa orbiter show white material exposed by fresh meteorite impacts fading over time - behaviour expected of ice on Mars.

An onboard instrument also detected the tell-tale chemical signature of water.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8273855.stm

[Rick]

MRO Spacecraft Observes Further Evidence of Dry Ice Gullies on Mars

Repeated high-resolution observations made by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) indicate the gullies on Mars' surface are primarily formed by the seasonal freezing of carbon dioxide, not liquid water.

The first reports of formative gullies on Mars in 2000 generated excitement and headlines because they suggested the presence of liquid water on the Red Planet, the eroding action of which forms gullies here on Earth. Mars has water vapor and plenty of frozen water, but the presence of liquid water on the neighboring planet, a necessity for all known life, has not been confirmed. This latest report about gullies has been posted online by the journal Icarus.

"As recently as five years ago, I thought the gullies on Mars indicated activity of liquid water," said lead author Colin Dundas of the U.S. Geological Survey's Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona. "We were able to get many more observations, and as we started to see more activity and pin down the timing of gully formation and change, we saw that the activity occurs in winter."

More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-226