{"id":17900,"date":"2015-09-28T10:16:28","date_gmt":"2015-09-28T17:16:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2015\/09\/nasa-confirms-that-liquid-water-flows-on-mars"},"modified":"2017-06-04T11:35:53","modified_gmt":"2017-06-04T18:35:53","slug":"nasa-confirms-that-liquid-water-flows-on-mars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2015\/09\/nasa-confirms-that-liquid-water-flows-on-mars","title":{"rendered":"NASA confirms that liquid water flows on Mars"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\\'blog-photo\\' href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/nasa-confirms-that-liquid-water-flows-on-mars.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Liquid water exists on the surface of Mars during the planet\u2019s warmer seasons, according to new research published in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/doi:10.1038\/ngeo2546\"> <em>Nature Geosciences <\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em> This revelation comes from new spectral data gathered by NASA\u2019s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), a spacecraft that studies the planet from orbit. The orbiter analyzed the chemistry of weird dark streaks that have been known to appear and disappear seasonally on the Martian surface. The analysis confirms that these streaks are formed by briny \u2014 or salty \u2014 water flowing downhill on Mars.<\/p>\n<p>NASA has advertised these findings as the solution to a major Mars mystery: does the Red Planet truly have liquid water on its surface? Researchers have known that water exists in ice form on Mars, but it\u2019s never been confirmed if water can remain in a liquid state. The space agency is claiming that we now have that answer.<\/p>\n<p>This isn\u2019t the first study to suggest liquid water is present in some form on Mars. Scientists have theorized for years that Mars was once home to a large ocean<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2015\/3\/5\/8157863\/mars-ocean-arctic-nasa-research-water\"> more than 4 billion years ago<\/a>. And recent findings from the Mars Curiosity rover suggest that<a href=\"http:\/\/www.space.com\/29072-mars-liquid-water-at-night.html\"> liquid water exists just underneath the Martian surface<\/a>. The discovery of water on Mars has almost become a joke among planetary scientists. Alfred McEwen, a planetary geologist at <a href=\"http:\/\/pirl.lpl.arizona.edu\/\">Planetary Image Research Laboratory<\/a> who also worked on this research,<a href=\"http:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/long-arduous-quest-find-flowing-water-on-mars-over\/\"> wrote in <i>Scientific American <\/i><\/a> that the studies have become extremely commonplace: \u201cCongratulations \u2014 you\u2019ve discovered water on Mars for the 1,000th time!\u201d he joked.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2015\/9\/28\/9408645\/nasa-mars-water-flow-discovery-proof\" target=\"_blank\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Liquid water exists on the surface of Mars during the planet\u2019s warmer seasons, according to new research published in Nature Geosciences . This revelation comes from new spectral data gathered by NASA\u2019s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), a spacecraft that studies the planet from orbit. The orbiter analyzed the chemistry of weird dark streaks that have [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":362,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,23,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chemistry","category-humor","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/362"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17900"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64062,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17900\/revisions\/64062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}