Rover Spots Possible Evidence of Liquid Water on Modern Mars
upstart writes:
China's Zhurong rover has found evidence of liquid water on present-day Mars, according to a team that reviewed data from the rover's cameras.
To be clear, the team claims they've collected evidence of liquid water on Mars-not the liquid water itself. Water was once plentiful on Mars. NASA, the European Space Agency, and others have found a plethora of evidence for ancient water on the planet; it's proving the recent presence of water that's trickier.
[...] "According to the measured meteorological data by Zhurong and other Mars rovers, we inferred that these dune surface characteristics were related to the involvement of liquid saline water formed by the subsequent melting of frost/snow falling on the salt-containing dune surfaces when cooling occurs," Qin Xiaoguang, a geophysicist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said in an academy release.
Mars' atmosphere is only 1% the density of Earth's, making it difficult for liquid water to exist on Mars today. But frozen water crops up regularly, in the form of possible subsurface lakes and even relict glaciers on the planet's surface.
[...] Based on the age of the dunes, they may have been hydrated when water vapor moved from the planet's polar ice sheet to its equator, making the planet's lower latitudes more humid. Like the discovery of the glacial remnants on Mars, these findings boost humankind's hopes for water's ability to persist near Mars' relatively balmy equator, where potential human missions would be based.
Journal Reference:
Xiaoguang Qin, Xin Ren, Xu Wang, et al., Modern water at low latitudes on Mars: Potential evidence from dune surfaces [open], Sci. Adv., 2023. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.add8868
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.