Wednesday, March 28, 2012

UA evidence for potential oases on Mars


The UA HiRISE camera team provided more evidence at the Lunar & Planetary Science Conference in Houston that Mars may have liquid water at or near its surface today, offering the tantalizing possibility of biological oases comparable to some found in Antarctica.

A report on Nature's website reports the HiRISE team doubled the number of "hundreds of narrow streaks on steep slopes inside crater walls" that appear to be the result of running water [right, credit NASA/JPL/UA]. UA planetary scientist Alfred McEwan is said to be "now a little more willing to state the obvious explanation for the streaks: that water ice, just below the surface, is melting just enough to flow through the pores of the sandy material at or near the surface."

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