In 2011 NASA researchers identified features on Mars known as Recuring Slope Lineae ( or RSL ). RSL are relatively dark and narrow features.They are thought to be a signs of salty liquid water on Mars. One hypothesis for RSL formation is that they form when underground bodies of salty water leak into the surface.
What features suggest that Mars once had liquid water?
Geologic evidence of past water includes enormous outflow channels carved by floods, ancient river valley networks, deltas, and lakebeds; and the detection of rocks and minerals on the surface that could only have formed in liquid water.
What is liquid water on Mars?
Scientists have uncovered further evidence that liquid water exists beneath the ice cap at the southern pole of Mars and it may mean that the planet is geothermally active.
What observational evidence supports the presence of liquid water on Mars?
New findings from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) provide the strongest evidence yet that liquid water flows intermittently on present-day Mars. Using an imaging spectrometer on MRO, researchers detected signatures of hydrated minerals on slopes where mysterious streaks are seen on the Red Planet.
Why can't Mars have liquid water?
This is different on Mars: the low pressure and low temperatures do not allow water to be stable in the liquid phase. Therefore, water on Mars is usually only stable as ice on the surface and as vapor in the atmosphere. A phase diagram showing the different phases of water as a function of temperature and pressure.
Has Mars ever had liquid water?
An analysis of large salt deposits on Mars indicates that ponds of liquid water existed on the Red Planet for about a billion years longer than previously believed.
How do scientists know there was liquid water on Mars?
used radar measurements from the Mars Express spacecraft to search for liquid water in Mars' southern ice cap (see the Perspective by Diez). They detected a 20-km-wide lake of liquid water underneath solid ice in the Planum Australe region.
What is the evidence that Mars once had liquid water quizlet?
Mars shows rivers, canyons, and teardrop-shaped erosions around craters, indicating that water was flowing and eroding the surface.
How do we know Mars had water?
Scientists charted the presence of chloride salt deposits left behind by flowing water using years of data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which has been orbiting the Red Planet since 2006.
Answer
Water on Mars exists in the form of ice in polar ice caps and in the form of vapor in a very small quantity in its atmosphere. It is considered that billion of years ago, Mars must have denser atmosphere and its surface would have large amount of liquid water.
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