Liquid Water Found on Mars, But It's Still a Hard Road for Life

摘要

Researchers appear to have finally achieved one of the Phoenix lander's primary goals. After digging through piles of data left from the mission to Mars more than 2 years ago, they've discovered signs that liquid water has lately flowed on the frigid planet. In a paper in press in Geophysical Research Letters, Phoenix team members report that liquid water-probably only thin films of it- appears to have concentrated salts onto small patches of soil that Phoenix uncovered. The water may be liquid every martian spring or summer, or perhaps it only melted many millennia ago.