For the first time, satellite imagery reveals thick Martian salt deposits scattered across the planet's southern surface, which one planetary scientist claims could be sites of ancient life.

The mats of sodium chloride — the same taste-enhancing mineral found on your kitchen table — serve as more evidence of Mars' watery past, and researchers think the briney pools that made them could have been hospitable to life.

"If you're trying to find life on Mars, the more and different places that exist, the better the chances are that one of them is going to have the right conditions," said Phil Christensen, a planetary geologist at Arizona State University. "It takes a lot of water to form salt, so this is another place to look."

Christensen, who co-authored a March 21st study in the journal Science detailing the findings, said the salt deposits are a clear sign of water's past presence, adding that they could be the most welcoming environment for life on Mars yet discovered.


Christensen said the salt deposits probably formed from dried-up brine pools, which would not have been as acidic as other places on Mars where water is thought to have existed, such as clay and hydrated mineral deposits.

Sites such as those found by the Mars Exploration Rovers show sulfur in high levels, which means any water there may have been too harsh to support life.

"That's not the case with salt deposits, because they tend to not be acidic," Christensen said.

He added that some of the oldest organisms ever discovered on Earth have been found locked away in salt crystals, and that there may be Martian life forms entombed in the new crumbly flats that are about 3 to 10 feet (1 to 3 meters) thick.

"Salt is a fantastically good preserver, so maybe there's not only life but also organic compounds preserved there," Christensen told SPACE.com. "We need to send a rover to these places. I hope some day we will explore these salt sites on the ground."

Transparent treasure

Christensen said the route to identifying the salt deposits, thought to be more than 3.5 billion Earth years old, wasn't easy.

"Salt, it turns out, is pretty hard to detect," Christensen said, explaining that light analysis, or spectroscopy, of the mineral doesn't often show clear-cut signatures in satellite data. "They're actually very transparent, so there's generally a lot of difficulty in identifying them."

Using the Mars Odyssey orbiter's Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS), the research team found dozens of strange sites in a belt just south of Mars' equator. Christensen said it took them a couple of years to figure out what, exactly, they were.

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Cool - yet more evidence of ancient Martian oceans. However, I REALLY don't like it how the media plasters the word "LIFE" all over any discovery having anything to do with mars. A "welcoming environment" is not an indication of life - it means it could have been plausible in the past. Oh well, at least its publicity...

Honestly, the aliens may not even need water to stay alive. How can the scientist put the alien to be the same as us humans?

Hi Electrokinesis:

Years ago, I thought the same thing -that maybe they didn't need water. It wasn't until I learned about cases where people reported seeing UFOs siphoning water up into the craft, and aliens floating around in vats of water that I began to believe that entities other than humans may require water to survive. This is why I believe that life may have existed on Mars, and could still exist even as higher life forms.

I don't think scientists place any of their ideas of possible alien life as being "the same as humans". However, the only life we know of...the almost infinite variety of life on Earth, is based upon complex organic molecules which use water as their vehicle. We look for life elsewhere by looking for those conditions which may permit carbon based life to evolve, which means, where water is as well. The molecules involved in the evolution of life are everywhere in abundance in the universe. It makes sense to think that life elsewhere would utilize these same molecules.

While I imagine it is possible to have some other solvent which would react with other types of molecules and perhaps produce something we might call life...we don't know of any such possibilities at this time.

We are carbon based, and of course, biased toward carbon based life...since all life we've ever known is of that construction.

I understand....

It's really difficult to like the media at all anymore.

If we ever do actually find some form of robust microbial life on Mars, it will indeed be an amazing discovery. But I wonder who ever called Mars a "welcoming environment"? About the best it gets in the summertime there is somewhat like antarctica, and in winter well...it's just inhospitable completely...not to mention that the atmoisphere is so tenuous that you'd be dead in minutes were you exposed to it (open up your jet airliner's cabin door at 38,000 feet and you'll have better atmospheric conditions than on Mars....and you'll still die rapidly!)...

MID, you always use these rather terrifying 'flight based' analogies, which are wonderful and all...but scare the livin' hell outta me!

I do, don't I?




Sorry Lil.

I don't mean it to be fearfully frightening or anything like that.
In reality, loss of cabin pressure at 38,000 feet will kill ya....but:

It wouldn't actually in pragmatic conditions.
Loss of pressure would trigger the O2 mask drops, which would be sufficient to sustain one without pressurization for a while at that altitude. Further, the Captain, fully cognizant of the situation, would be implored gently, "Time to dive now, darling," and would be making tracks for somplace below about 12,000 feet, where everything's peachy...

No worries, no nightmares.
Your ears might pop a bit on the way down, but you'd be glad for that as opposed to the alternative!