NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Provides Insights About Mars Water and Climate

This article explains the activity of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which has recently been investigating features of the Martian surface that could help to illustrate the role of water during different ages in history. The orbiter examined material deposited in two gullies within the last year, which have generated hypotheses that modern flows of liquid water had been detected. The MRO was able to determine that these deposits were not the result of the action of water, but the debris of a dry landslide. One feature of the gully in particular, a stripe of bright material several hundred yards long that appeared sometime before 2004, was thought to be frost, ice, or a mineral product of evaporation of salty water. The MRO found bright material uphill from the stripe, indicating that the feature may be the remains of a landslide.
Other images from the high-resolution camera aboard MRO have, however, found other gullies with similar patterns whose slopes are too shallow to allow dry landslides. The cameras found clear indications of liquid flow such as braided channels and terraces in the gullies as well as fan-like deposits characteristic of river deltas. Images have also found landscapes that appear to have been shaped by water in conjunction with ‘ponded’ deposits which have been interpreted as material that melted as the result of a meteoritic impact with an icy crust. This evidence supports the idea that the presence of water on mars is episodic and unlinked to precipitation.
The MRO has also examined layers near the Martian poles with radar to detect the presence of ice. The radar discovered layering patterns near the South Pole that indicate climatic periods of accumulation of deposits alternating with periods of erosion. The information gathered by the MRO further illustrates the need for further exploration of the Martian surface and soil to better understand the dynamics of water on the Red Planet.