Mars Odyssey continues to deliver. I mentioned in an earlier post that while the major media outlets' Mars missions coverage seemed pre-occupied with the failures of Polar Lander and Climate Orbiter, if you dug a little deeper you'd find that amazing successes were unfolding with Odyssey and Global Surveyor.
Well, today Dr. David Whitehouse, science writer for the BBC, has devoted a column to the work of Tahirih Motazedian (University of Oregon) which seems to point to contemporary flowing water on Mars. Once again, our amazing Martian orbiters have delivered data which is changing the way we view the red planet, this time showing strong evidence for water flows.
New black streaks becoming visible between photos taken only months apart look a lot like water flow down the side of Olympus Mons. Ms. Motazedian says, "This demonstrates the existence of a currently active, short-term process of surface change on Mars," and the streaks are "highly indicative of dynamic fluid flow." This is the most conclusive evidence to date and suggests that in certain areas there exists enough thermal heat to melt the frozen sub-surface water ice that covers large areas of the Martian surface.
Thanks to Sci-Fi Today for the heads up.
Posted by asa at March 14, 2003 12:54 PM