Mars May Be As Barren As Scientists Initially Thought, New Research Showed

The possibility of the existence of water on Mars made waves in news sites last year - and thanks to Matt Damon's film where he lived on the red planet for over a year, people have become more and more curious about our neighbor.

However, a new study from the Northern Arizona University and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintrige, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, showed that Mars, while not as dry as initially thought, is dry nonetheless.

Scientists believed that the dark streaks in Mars were very salty water that seeped down the hillside during the spring and summer months, and disappeared in the fall. The hydrated salt then allowed the water to stay liquid despite the harsh environment.

However, this doesn't seem to be the case. Pasadena Star News reported that the lead authors of the study, Christopher Edwards and Sylvain Piqueux used thermal imaging instruments aboard the Mars Odyssey orbiter and compared the temperature if the dark streaks on the planet to other areas where the phenomenon called "recurring slope lineae" does not appear.

If there is indeed enough liquid, the temperatures should change during the seasonal flows, but they found no difference, leading to the conclusion that there is actually little to no moisture at all. Put simply, for two pounds of soil, there's no more than an ounce of water in the area - and that is at its best scenario.

But why did the conclusions change as fast as they did? Emily Lakdawala, resident Mars expert at the Pasadena-based Planetary Society admitted that "scientists don't actually know what is going on, they have different hypotheses that are supported by different evidence. You sometimes get this seesaw back and forth of conclusions about exciting things."

That being said, there is no conclusion that could put an end to these hypotheses at the moment. However, that doesn't mean that scientists will stop exploring Mars anytime soon. In fact, Richard Zurek, chief scientist for the Mars Program Office at JPL said, "we still don't have an answer for this, so we're going to keep exploring."