Water Flows Discovered on Mars

Narrated by Alfred McEwen from the amazing HiRise camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Here is rotating globe of Mars and we're going to zoom in on the middle Southern latitudes, the part of Mars where we find these active slope features, and we're zooming in on the Newton Basin crater here.

What you can see are lots of gullies. The active features that we've recently discovered are on the slopes that are facing mostly to the North to the equator.

What we see are much smaller scale features than gullies. You can see_an area of bedrock, a steep cliff here, and it's from that bedrock that these dark features flow out.

Given the latitude and the slope aspect and particular the temperatures, it suggests that there's a volatile involved here and the appropriate volatile for this temperature is water, probably salty water because sometimes these are active when it's a little bit below the freezing point of pure water, salt lowers the melting point. And water on Mars should be salty; we know there's lots of salts on Mars.

This is potentially actual water, in the liquid state, flowing on Mars today not millions of years ago. In late spring and into the summer is when these features form and fade. By late summer - early fall they'll be completely gone and we'll see just a normal looking slope throughout the winter.
Every place where we have multiple years these features recurr.

They're not exactly the same, they may be more or less active one year than another but they keep coming back.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• mars
• solar
• system
• venus
• life
• water
• nasa
• jpl
• orbit
• space
• universe
• planets
• planet
• alien
• sun
• moon
• jupiter
• earth
• astronomy
• science
• telescopes
• rover
• orbiter

[MINN3APOLIS]

It's probably sewage waste that the inhabitants living underground flush out once or twice a year.

[DanielRecordszzzz]

this is awesome : water flowing on mars! we need fuckin spaceships to land on this place and confirm that its flowing water!

[jfmayer]

at least there is water there so the day I go to Mars I will be able to flush when I go caca. 

[jugulator0]

Cant really take any chances here- best just to nuke it from orbit-its the only way to be sure,

[qwertyuiopUUUGGGHHH]

wow thats great.

[sufizmjim]

This is cool, thanks for sharing.

[PursuitsOfxHappiness]

we've all been lied too, there has to be life outside of us. the universe is too big for us to be the only ones we've discovered. our government is going to try there hardest to not expose us to other life forms because if people find out there is life besides us, then we start to question god and the reason for being alive.

[sn9696]

@lilplinky ,it was venus that came close or struck mars thinning out mars atmosphere,that's why you see a large gash on mars.Venus was a large comet that came into our area and is now locked in orbit,This happen about 4,000 years ago...

[lilplinky]

If Mars was warmer in the remote past with an abundance of liquid water, it may have been possible that Mars was in a closer orbit, say 110m miles rather than 135m average. One theory is a small asteroid hit which knocked out Mars magnetic field thus allowing the solar wind to gradually thin-out the atmosphere. This "hit" could also have a shock effect causing Mars to change it's orbit slightly perhaps the asteroid was coming from the Sun's direction which pushed Mars orbit a bit further out.

[jaime1083]

Nice pics of middle earth but i can't see mordor

[difficultsyllables]

Water = Life