NASA confirmed what humankind suspected for a long time, that there is water on Mars. Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer aboard NASA’s lander Phoenix detected water vapor from Martian soil sample. Although one of NASA scientists said on their official site that they have tasted Martian water, I would rather say, Phoenix has only smelled it so far.
So is it salty or fresh? It certainly does not smell the same like Mediterranean on Pampelonne beach near St Tropez, but it is very likely salty. Certainly these first results are revolutionary and I am looking forward for further chemical and biological analysis results. Like Earth’s poles ice caps hold a lot of secrets frozen over millions of years, Mars do as well for sure. Although Martian polar ice does not seems to be melting like ours on Earth does due to the global warming, let’s hurry up and discover Martian secrets. We might learn some useful things even for the better life on the mother Earth, not only to find answers to human curiosity. It’s good that Phoenix smelled water also because it got awarded a modest sum of 2 million US$ to pursue its mission for 5 weeks more. And if there was an inhabited ocean on the Mars 4 billion years ago, maybe there is some crude oil under the ice cap, just like on Earth…
Above - Space station as represented in “2001: Space Odyssey” science-fiction film; Below - the International Space Station orbiting our planet