New Study Suggests , Discovery of Liquid Water on Mars , May Have Been an Illusion.
According to a new study, liquid water
previously discovered beneath the Martian
south pole may have just been an illusion. .
'The Independent' reports that a new study
suggests that bright reflections at the pole match
those of volcanic plains found across Mars. .
Reserchers say that the current temperature
and pressure of the red planet makes the
presence of stable liquid water unlikely. .
Scientists at the University of Texas at Austin
suggest volcanic rock buried under ice
was mistaken for large bodies of water. .
For water to be sustained this close
to the surface, you need both a very
salty environment and a strong, locally
generated heat source, but that doesn’t
match what we know of this region, Cyril Grima, Lead author and planetary scientist at the University
of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG),via 'The Independent'.
According to 'The Independent,' lava flows rich in iron on Earth and leaves behind similar
rocks that produce similar reflections. .
The study, published in the journal
Geophysical Research Letters,
is based on three years of data from Marsis.
Marsis is a radar instrument that
was launched aboard the European
Space Agency’s Mars Express in 2005.
'The Independent' reports that other hypotheses include mineral deposits left in ancient riverbeds. .
Isaac Smith, a geophysicist at York University, suggests the bright reflections are from a kind of clay made when rock erodes in water.
I think the beauty of Cyril Grima’s finding
is that while it knocks down the idea there
might be liquid water under the planet’s
south pole today, it also gives us really
precise places to go look for evidence
of ancient lakes and riverbeds and test
hypotheses about the wider drying
out of Mars’ climate over billions of years, Isaac Smith, Mars geophysicist at York University,
via 'The Independent'