Mars is shown in a photograph by the Hubble Space Telescope on the planet’s closest approach to Earth in 60,000 years. NASA’s robotic rover Curiosity landed safely on Mars late Sunday to begin two years of exploration. The mission cost $2.5 billion.CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) – Mars appears to have flowing rivulets of salty water, at least in the summer, scientists reported Monday in a finding that could have major implications for the possibility of life on the red planet.
“It suggests that it would be possible for there to be life today on Mars,” NASA’s science mission chief, John Grunsfeld, said at a news conference.
Scientists in 2008 confirmed the existence of frozen water on Mars. But instruments aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have yielded the strongest evidence yet that salt water in liquid form flows down certain Martian slopes each summer, according to the researchers.
“Mars is not the dry, arid planet that we thought of in the past,” said Jim Green, director of planetary science for NASA. “Under certain circumstances, liquid water has been found on Mars.”
The rivulets – if that’s what they are, since the evidence for their existence is indirect – are about 12 to 15 feet wide and 300 feet or more long, scientists said.