The recent discovery by NASA of water flowing on present-day Mars will not only make a manned journey to the planet more plausible, but will also reinvigorate the search for intelligent life in space, says one of Australia’s leading astronomers.
Dr Tassos Tzioumis, program leader for radio telescope technology at the CSIRO, said the discovery last month of dark narrow streaks on the walls of the Garni crater on Mars indicated that water does flow on the surface of modern day Mars.
“There have always been suggestions that there has been water on Mars in the past – the question was ‘is there any now’,” said Dr Tzioumis.
The discovery that there is water is the culmination of many years of theorising about its presence and the actual effort to discover it. Five satellites currently gather data above the planet’s thin atmosphere and two ‘rover’ vehicles on the ground have been exploring our nearest planetary neighbour.
“The whole excitement is about life,” says Tzioumis. “For life as we know it you need energy, nutrients and water. There is energy from the sun, for nutrients there is plenty of material on the surface of Mars, so microbes can grow, and now they find flowing water in which microbes can survive.
“But you won’t find big ‘Martians’, as you need to have water staying for very long periods of time constantly on the surface of Mars so the evolution of more complex life forms becomes possible.”
Surface temperatures on the planet vary from -143°C to as much as 35°C, with the average temperature being an extremely frigid -63°C.
The ‘water’ discovered on Mars consists of a mixture of chemical compounds of water which drastically reduce the freezing point of water from 0°C, as it is on Earth, to about -70°C. So when you consider the average temperature on the planet is -63°C, then it is possible to envisage the flow of water on its surface for some part of the Martian year.
Dr Tzioumis said the excitement of the discovery makes a journey to Mars more likely and raises important questions about our position in the universe.
“If we find microbes on Mars that we did not put there, then that means that life that has arisen on Earth can arise in the same way elsewhere in the universe.”
The latest Martian discovery may also stimulate the search for intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.
“NASA used to run the SETI (Search for Extra Terrestial Intelligence) program until it was cut by the US Congress. Since then the search has been privately funded. The discovery of water on the Mars surface makes the case stronger to continue the search for intelligent life in the universe.”