Salts had never been found on Mars.īut then they were. While Renno deemed them water and suggested that salts on the planet’s surface might make it so, many of his colleagues disagreed. Over several weeks, the globules seemed to grow and coalesce. In 2008, Renno was the first to notice strange globules in photos Phoenix sent back. “For me, the most exciting thing is that I can now understand how the droplets formed on the Phoenix leg,” says Nilton Renno, professor of atmospheric, oceanic and space sciences at University of Michigan. Researchers have used chambers that mimic conditions on Mars are among the first to test theories about how it could exist in such a cold climate. No one has directly detected liquid water beyond Earth. Erik Fischer sets up a Mars atmospheric chamber by running liquid nitrogen to cool it down. Mars is one of the very few places in the solar system where scientists have seen promising signs of it-in gullies down crater rims, in instrument readings, and in Phoenix spacecraft self-portraits that appear to show wet beads on the lander’s leg several years ago. Liquid water is an essential ingredient for life as we know it.
Despite below-freezing conditions, a type of salt on Mars may melt ice to form water, just like salts do on Earth’s slippery winter walkways and roads.
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