What NASA found on Mars will shock you!

There is liquid water on Mars, Nasa has announced following tests done by the Curiosity rover.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - This news contradicts decades of thought that Earth's neighbor was too cold and arid for liquid water to exist, and may mean that microbial life could have existed on the red planet.

Give the gift of love and wisdom to a friend or loved one in need.

"The evidence so far is that any water would be in the form of permafrost," said Professor Andrew Coates, the head of planetary science at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory at University College of London. "It's the first time we've had evidence of liquid water there now."

The recent findings from Curiosity shows that soil on Mars has liquid brine because of the salinity which makes water freeze at a significantly lower temperature. The calcium perchlorate found in the brine makes water's freezing point around -94 degrees Fahrenheit.

A senior scientist with the project, Morten Bo Madsen of the University omf Copenhagen said that because of the porous soil on Mars "what we are seeing is that the water seeps down through the soil. Over time, other salts may also dissolve in the soil and now that they are liquid, they can move and precipitate elsewhere under the surface."

The presence of liquid water is considered a major and essential need for life as seen on Earth, but Mars also lacks many other prerequisites for life as we know it. Even this recent discovery does not change the mind of scientists that even if there had been life on Mars at one point, it likely died out hundreds of millions or even billions of years ago.

"There are organisms on Earth, halophiles, that can survive in sally environments, but if it's also very cold and very dry, that's a problem," Madsen said. "The radiation on Mars nails it-that environment is very hostile."

---

'Help Give every Student and Teacher FREE resources for a world-class Moral Catholic Education'