RSL animated
gif. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona)
Today, our newest MSc at PVL examines a large and well-known problem in planetary science: the water inventory of Mars and how we achieved the state of knowledge we now posses. Grappling with such big picture issues is as important for trainees as is the fine details of their own research.
By Brittney Cooper
The internet was
recently abuzz with the latest results from the Mars Advanced Radar for
Sub-Surface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS) instrument, as it returned evidence for a
sub-surface lake near Mars’ south pole. Of course, that’s not how a lot of us
saw it communicated in the news and on social media. It can be incredibly hard
to distill intricate and niche scientific findings for the public’s palate, and
often you see media outlets striving less to find that balance in favour of simply
slapping on a sensationalist title and making sweeping assumptions.
A misleading
headline that once again reared its ugly head in many publications was the
age-old classic “Water Discovered on Mars!”. The important distinction with
this newest discovery is that the water is “liquid”, and while making that
distinction may seem like a small oversight, it makes a big difference when
considering the geologic, atmospheric, and astro-biological ramifications. Furthermore,
water has been known to exist on Mars in both gaseous and solid states since the 1970s, and in 2015 scientists also claimed to have found salty liquid water on Mars’
surface in the form of recurring slope lineae (see photo above).
