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February 18, 2021
Researchers at the SETI Institute say that mysterious dark streaks on sun-facing slopes on Mars, debated about for years, may be small landslides caused by a combination of salts and melting ice just below the surface.
A sample of Mars analog crust (imitation Martian soil) containing sulfate salts (blue and pink). The new study suggests that such salts and melting ice just below the surface on Mars could cause the enigmatic dark streaks on sun-facing slopes. Image via Janice Bishop/ SETI Institute.
For years now, scientists have been trying to figure out what causes weird dark streaks on Martian slopes called recurring slope lineae. They tend to be found on sun-facing slopes and keep repeating in the same places, hence the word “recurring” in the name. Different studies have suggested everything from brief flows of briny water or groundwater to dry landslides. A new theory combines elements of both. The intriguing peer-reviewed results were published in
I was educated in New Zealand at the University of Waikato and completed a period of postdoctoral study there before moving to University College London as a Lecturer in 1985. After 16 years in London, I accepted the position at Professor of Microbiology in the Department of Biotechnology at the University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, where I was a Senior Professor and Director of the 60-strong Institute Microbial Biotechnology and Metagenomics. I moved to the University of Pretoria in May 2012 in the dual role as Director of both the University of Pretoria Institutional Research Theme in Genomics and my research group, the Centre for Microbial Ecology and Genomics. The latter is housed in a newly refurbished1000m2 laboratory suite on the Hatfield Campus.
McMurdo Valleys Mars on Earth
McMurdo Valleys Mars on Earth
10 de febrero de 2021, 0:23Havana. Searching for other worlds may work as an alternative at least that is what the McMurdo Dry Valleys suggest, in the land of Victoria, Antarctica, considered the most Mars like place on Earth. The Dry Valleys –so named because its humidity level is extremely low and there is no snow, nor an ice cover – cover about 4 800 square kilometers, which represents 0.03 percent of the surface of that portion of the globe.
The region includes numerous interesting geological features such as Lake Vida whose salinity is higher than that of seawater and the Onyx River which feeds only on the melting of glaciers and is the longest on the frozen continent with one of the driest deserts on the planet.
Sat, 06 Feb 2021 12:00 UTC
Changes in Mar s geography always attract significant scientific and even public attention. A hope for signs of liquid water (and therefore life) is likely one of the primary driving forces behind this interest.
One particularly striking changing feature is the Recurring Slope Lineae (RSL) originally found by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Now,
scientists at the
have a modified theory for where those RSLs might develop - a combination of water ice and salt just under the Martian surface.
According to the SETI team, led by Senior Research Scientist Janice Bishop, there is a two step process going on that creates these RSLs.