New Hope for Life on Mars

Peter_Pork writes "New images sent back by NASA's Mars Odyssey have prompted an interesting theory about Martian gullies, as reported today by Washington Post and New Scientist. Odyssey's images show snow accumulations near the gullies, suggesting that the gullies were formed by melted snow. Scientists have developed a new weather model based on 100,000-year cycles in which snow first accumulates in highlands and it is then melted by the action of the sun. Liquid water, protected from evaporation by a superficial layer of snow, would carve the gullies in a few thousand years. This idea gives further hope to the search of life forms in Mars, since liquid water is suitable for sustaining life. Upcoming landings (three in the next two years) should shed more light on the question, but they will most likely not land in the rocky areas where this phenomenon occurs."

Comments

Re:Contamination of Mars et at. with terrestrial l

[Christopher Thomas]

I'm sure they will discover life on Mars in the near future - and discover later that they brought it themselves with their space vehicle.

All Mars craft to date have been sterilized to prevent exactly this kind of contamination.