Why Curiosity never would have found water on Mars
Don鈥檛 expect Mars rover Curiosity to capture any selfies splashing around in the Red Planet鈥檚 newly-discovered liquid water just yet.
In fact, NASA鈥檚 rover would likely have never found flowing water on Mars, a breakthrough discovery made using the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and聽announced by NASA on Monday.
Why? Curiosity is physically incapable of reaching the steep terrain where this water was found, .
But more importantly, the , a 1967 United Nations document which sets the rules for space exploration, requires such exploration to eschew interplanetary contamination by Earth life 鈥� that means no human or robot can get near any water source.
As Quartz鈥檚 , it is extremely difficult to avoid this.
Terrestrial life has been shown to be very resilient. Microbes are found in almost every nook and cranny of this planet, even the driest and hottest parts. Earth鈥檚 microbes survived nearly two years stuck on the . All probes that land on Mars are cleaned to be sterilized of life but how strict you need to be to ensure that bacterial life cannot form viable, self-sustaining colonies on Mars.
Rathi added that there is an abundance of regions designated as no-go zones, including 鈥渁reas that are warm or wet enough to support Martian life ... Polar ice caps, caves, and regions with volcanic activity are such special regions. Even regions where ice is found as deep as five meters below the surface are on the list.鈥�
This presents a major barrier for on-the-ground exploration moving forward, and could lead to disagreement among the scientific community over how to collect more research. , NASA now faces a dilemma over Curiosity鈥檚 role in analyzing the water sources.
However, the dark, damp streaks, called recurring slope lineae (RSL), are a different prospect. Because they are wet at least part of the time, they will be designated as special regions where only sterile landers can visit. But such a restriction could hamper scientists鈥� hopes of looking for current life on Mars.
鈥淭here will be heated discussions in the next weeks and months about what Curiosity will be allowed to do and whether it can go anywhere near the RSLs,鈥� said of University College London鈥檚 Mullard space science laboratory.
But the Guardian also noted that Curiosity could still analyze the water flows from a distance, though a second, more controversial direction would be to "find a flat region at the bottom of one of the flows, and scoop up some Martian soil for analysis."
In March, showing the Red Planet used to have an ocean covering nearly half of the planet鈥檚 northern hemisphere. It would have held more water than Earth鈥檚 Arctic Ocean and, in some places, would have been deeper than a mile.
And last week, 海角大神 reported on NASA鈥檚 plans for a manned mission to Mars sometime in the 2030s. It remains to be seen whether astronauts would be able to utilize the water found on the Red Planet.
