Nasa scientists find evidence of flowing water on Mars

[P.J.]

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Monday 28 September2015

Liquid water runs down canyons and crater walls over the summer months on Mars, according to researchers who say the discovery raises the chances of being home to some form of life.


The trickles leave long, dark stains on the Martian terrain that can reach hundreds of metres downhill in the warmer months, before they dry up in the autumn as surface temperatures drop.


Images taken from the Mars orbit show cliffs, and the steep walls of valleys and craters, streaked with summertime flows that in the most active spots combine to form intricate fan-like patterns.


Scientists are unsure where the water comes from, but it may rise up from underground ice or salty aquifers, or condense out of the thin Martian atmosphere.


“There is liquid water today on the surface of Mars,” Michael Meyer, the lead scientist on Nasa’s Mars exploration programme, told the Guardian. “Because of this, we suspect that it is at least possible to have a habitable environment today.”

A visual guide to water on Mars





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http://www.theguardian.com/science/...-evidence-flowing-water-mars?CMP=share_btn_fb

 

[P.J.]

Nepal Boy Was Pivotal To NASA's Find Of Water On Mars

Nepal Boy Was Pivotal To NASA's Find Of Water On Mars

28/09/2015

Twenty-five-year old Lujendra Ojha may have just become Nepal's greatest scientist. The aspirant geo-scientist, who's yet to formally become a bonafide researcher and still pursuing doctoral studies at Georgia Institute of Technology, was the first among a team of US scientists to persuasively show that Mars most certainly contained liquid water.


While this could lend weight to theories about the possibility of some form of life, the researchers caveat that many more questions need to be answered.


Ojha and his colleagues have found evidence for hydrated salts, likely magnesium perchlorate, magnesium chlorate and sodium perchlorate, according to a study published in the journal Nature Geoscience this week. The findings were also announced as part of a conference at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in California, where Ojha was among the speakers.


While he's already proved his academic chops, Ojha earlier told the Telegraph that he sometimes " still dreams of travelling around the world playing guitar."


Ojha is lead guitarist of heavy-metal student band named Gorkha and moved with his parents to the United States in 2005 when he was 15.


Music mania apart, he was drawn to science via comic books, science fiction and Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, which he recalls reading while he was in the 9th grade at Kathmandu’s Galaxy Public School.


“I’m from halfway around the world, came here, and got involved in some awesome research. For me to move from Nepal to Capitol Hill in such a short (time) feels like a great accomplishment,” the Telegraph quoted him as telling his university newsletter

http://www.huffingtonpost.in/2015/0...r-f_n_8208816.html?ncid=fcbklnkinhpmg00000001