NASA finds first signs of water on Mars

NASA’s Curiosity rover has found the first indications that water could exist underneath the surface of Mars.

While the red planet has long been considered too cold and dry to sustain liquid water, the discovery of certain salts in the soil combined with a year’s worth of Curiosity’s observations indicate that some parts of the planet might be able to sustain liquid water just below the surface.

{mosads}The discovery, announced on Monday and published in the journal Nature Geosciences, could have far-reaching implications for humanity’s exploration of Mars and could point toward the possibility that the planet, at some point, was home to life.

“Liquid water is a requirement for life as we know it, and a target for Mars exploration missions,” said Javier Martin-Torres, a member of the Curiosity’s science team and the lead author of the new report, in a statement.

“Conditions near the surface of present-day Mars are hardly favorable for microbial life as we know it, but the possibility for liquid brines on Mars has wider implications for habitability and geological water-related processes.”

Researchers have long been aware of the existence of ice on Mars, but the planet’s climate was thought to be too rough for the existence of liquid water.

However, surveys performed by the rover found salts in the Martian soil that can lower the freezing temperature of water. When relative humidity in the air gets high enough, those salts can absorb water molecules and dissolve them into water, in a process known as deliquescence.

The conditions are right for water to form a few nights a year, NASA said, though it would dry out when temperatures increase at sunrise.

Scientists have found the necessary salts in Martian soil around its poles, as the rover nears the equator, indicating it might be widespread throughout the planet. The odds of water are likely to be greater at areas closer to the poles, NASA said, where the temperature would be lower.

Still, the brutal conditions on Mars, combined with the planet’s lack of protections against harmful radiation from the sun, makes it incredibly unlikely that any life currently exists on the planet. But scientists believe that the planet’s environment might have been more welcoming billions of years ago, when a thicker atmosphere protected the surface from cosmic radiation.