Flowing Water Discovered on Mars
Yahoo! News— Flow-like features on Mars are a source of debate among scientists. While some experts say they are likely produced by liquid water or brine on the Red Planet’s surface today, other investigations interpret some of these features as dry mass movements, stirred up by various other processes.
Whatever the cause, these slope streaks — called Recurring Slope Lineae — represent the movement of mass down slopes on the surface of our neighboring planet. They are among the few known examples of current geologic activity on Mars.
Many scientists agree that water likely flowed across ancient Mars. However, whether it exists as a liquid on the planet’s surface today is arguable.
Recurring Slope Lineae are dark, narrow features that extend on steep, equator-facing, mid-latitude rocky slopes of Mars. Furthermore, they form and grow during multiple warm seasons, and fade in cold seasons.
The head-scratching phenomenon sparked a lively debate on what’s behind the strange slope processes on Mars during last week’s 43rd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas. [Photos: The Search for Water on Mars]
SPACE.com spoke to several scientists involved in the research, who gave us a glimpse into what may be happening on Mars.
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