Dec. 6, 2006 — Time-lapsed photographs of Mars show features that most likely were made by water flowing on the planet today, NASA scientists said Wednesday.
"No one expected what we found today," said Kenneth Edgett, a scientist with Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, Calif. "We are talking about liquid water that is present on Mars right now."
The images were taken by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor, which had been studying the Red Planet for a decade before an apparent mission-ending failure last month.
The discovery raises the prospect that indigenous life could exist on Mars today, said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program.
The agency has mounted a series of increasingly sophisticated missions to look for signs of past water on Mars in hopes of identifying areas that could have been suitable for life to form.
"Maybe we no longer have to think about following the water, but watching the water," Edgett said.
The conclusion that water flows on Mars today is based on photographs the Global Surveyor took of gullies etched in the Martian soil.
Two sites in particular caught researchers' eyes because there were noticeable changes between pictures taken six years ago and ones snapped in 2004 and 2005.
Both show the gullies had filled with a light-colored deposit, which is believed to be frozen water.
