The Red Planet's Blue Beauty

By Jezreel Icaranom

For many decades, it is now common knowledge that Mars, the Red Planet, is teeming with water frozen in the form of polar ice caps, and for many decades, it has speculated scientists all over the world if Mars did indeed had life flourishing on it many million years ago. Lots of years had passed, and the search still goes on, until this year, 2015, when a finding further supported the claim.

Mars’ frozen ice caps aren’t only frozen – they flow too. This is what the scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) discovered after realizing that fresh stains from the cliffs near the ice caps and crater 

walls give evidence to flowing water, and surprisingly, this event occurs every summer on  Mars.                                                                                      Photo courtesy: science.nasa.gov

With a photograph by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter providing the single strongest evidence at current times that water does indeed flow on Earth’s neighbor. Using a specialized device, the scientists found traces of hydrated minerals on these cliffs and landmarks and seem to ebb and flow over time, much like how Earth’s oceans tide in and out. Furthermore, these stains of hydrated minerals create some sort of pattern which greatly resembles that of the Earth’s mountains during the rain.  This discovery not only prompted that there is liquid water on Mars today, as said by lead scientist Michael Meyer, but also gave more hope to all the scientists of finding life on Mars.

This discovery alone shows everyone how advanced in modern technology humans have developed, how well our hunger for knowledge have led us to current times. Now that we have more evidence of life on our neighbor, it is reasonable to strengthen the grips on the theory that humans are not alone in the universe.