NASA To Send A Spacecraft To Mars In 2020 After Seeing Signs Of Flowing Water On The Planet
NASA's associate administrator for science, John Grunsfeld, discussed the possibility of sending spacecraft to Mars in the 2020s to look for signs of life following the recent discovery of signs of flowing water in the planet, reported New York Times Sept. 28.
"I can't imagine that it won't be a high priority with the scientific community," said Grunsfeld.
For the first time, experts were able to confirm flowing liquid on the planet through the dark, narrow, downhill streaks found on the surface. This als raises the possibility of the existence of life in the region.
"This is tremendously exciting," said the NASA's director for planetary science division James L. Green. "We haven't been able to answer the question, 'Does life exist beyond Earth?' But following the water is a critical element of that. We now have, I think, great opportunities in the right locations on Mars to thoroughly investigate that."
Scientist identified a type of salt known as percholates on the orbit readings of the planet's surface.
"That's a direct detection of water in the form of hydration of salts," said Alfred S. McEwen, a professor of planetary geology at the University of Arizona. McEwan is the principal investigator of images from a high-resolution camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. "There pretty much has to have been liquid water recently present to produce the hydrated salt."
As much as experts would want to get to the region as soon as possible in order to gather information and possibly physical evidence, Quartz noted Sept. 29 that the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 prohibits anyone from sending missions where robots or humans might get near a source of water in order to prevent contamination with Earth life forms.
Even the Mars 2020 Rover that features a plutonium-powered heat generator may produce ice that could melt and produce water once it touches the surface.
This then may imply that NASA will be prohibited from actually exploring the very areas that they are aiming to investigate.
