Summertime on Mars is bringing water to the planet's surface, suggest NASA scientists who on Wednesday unveiled pictures of slender carvings in the sun-facing sides of crater walls on Mars that are believed to be etched by flowing briny water.
"Mars is salty so any water that flows in or on the surface would be salty as well," lead researcher Alfred McEwen, with the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, told Discovery News.
Salts also would suppress the water's freezing point, making it plausible that the dark, finger-like features were carved by liquid. The streaks range from 0.5 yards to 5 yards wide and stretch hundreds of feet, far smaller than previously detected gullies. They are concentrated on rocky, equator-facing slopes.
The streaks also are highly seasonal, some growing by more than 600 feet over two Earth months, said University of Arizona researcher Lujendra Ojha, who was an undergraduate at the time and who is credited with the find. The features appear in the late spring to early fall, suggesting a material that disappears fairly quickly is involved.
Credit to DJones for the fishing license idea.
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