Liquid water on Mars lander…or not.

What's that stuff on the strut?

NASA scientists are in disagreement about what they see in a photo from the Mars lander, Phoenix. Round blobs are visible on one of the struts of the spacecraft. Some scientists say it’s liquid water. Others say, that’s not so.

Liquid water at 90 below zero?

Here on earth, water freezes at 32 degrees fahrenheit. Mars is very cold. How can there be liquid water…and not ice…at such cold temperatures?

Nilton O. Renno believes that salts absorbed into the water lowers the freezing point for the water…and allows it to remain liquid at the cold temperatures. Renno and his co-authors will be delivering a paper (link is a PDF of their paper) on their theory next week at a conference in Woodlands, Texas.

Not convinced

Michael Hecht, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, disagrees. The evidence, he notes, is a low quality grainy photo. He believes that there is a simpler explanation of what that photo shows…and that the idea that the photo shows liquid water is, at best, not proven.

This is all reminiscent of the Mars rock that, several years back, was alleged to contain micro-fossils of ancient Martian life. With some circumstantial evidence, some scientists suggested that the proponderance of the information demonstrated that these patterns were, indeed, micro-fossils.

But others disagreed. And now, it is pretty well accepted that the Martian rock does NOT contain micro-fossils. The point is: I think it is premature to consider this proved. In fact, the scientists who are suggesting that the photo shows liquid water say that they do not have proof, but that the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming.

I’m not (yet) overwhelmed. But I am intrigued.