"Mars Shows Signs of Having Flowing Water, Possible Niches for Life, NASA Says."

Jeb Burnell

ESCI 10H Current Event

Mrs. McLellan

19 October 2015

Chang, Kenneth. "Mars Shows Signs of Having Flowing Water, Possible Niches for Life, NASA Says."

The New York Times. The New York Times, 28 Sept. 2015. Web. 17 Oct. 2015.

<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/science/space/mars-life-liquid-water.html?ref=space&_r=0>.

The article I chose to review for my current event was Kenneth Chang’s article concerning the

existence of water on Mars for The New York Times titled "Mars Shows Signs of Having Flowing Water, Possible Niches for Life, NASA Says." Chang starts his article by describing how the people within the scientific community are reacting to the recent news that showed existence of liquid water on Mars, such as James L. Green, a director of the planetary science division of NASA, who described the instance as “tremendously exciting.” NASA, as Chang goes on to say, is also making plans to develop and send a spacecraft to Mars for the purpose of finding water on the surface of the planet, as finding life on Mars has been flagged as a “high priority” by other NASA officials. Chang’s article then explains the science behind the water that was found, and that there are shades of grey to a topic that many think is black and white - habitability on Mars. Scientists at NASA have concluded that there are hydrated salts in what are known as recurring slope lineae (R.S.L.s). R.S.L.s are dark streaks on the surface of Mars, caused by the presence of water, a lot like how cement turns dark when exposed to water. Salts in the R.S.L.s are hydrated by liquid water underneath the surface of Mars. Chang then explains how scientists are also saying how just because there is liquid water on Mars, there is not necessary the fundamental building blocks for life to exist on the planet. Christopher P. McKay, a NASA astrobiologist, spoke on the topic, saying how the water on Mars manages to say liquid because of the saltiness of the water. He points out how in Antarctica, the Don Juan pond stays liquid year round because of its high salinity. The water on Mars, according to McKay, is too salty for any life to survive. Other scientists, such as David E. Stillman, disagree, saying that if the water is as salty as McKay says it is, would not be liquid year-round, which it is not. Chang then goes on to describe the rover that is set to land on Mars in the 2020’s. This spacecraft, currently in the planning process, is not to touch the R.S.L.s for fear of contamination from Earthly microbes, so an extensive sterilization process is being planned for the proposed spacecraft.

The topic of life on Mars is very relevant to our life on Earth. For one, the existence of life on Mars has been a topic that NASA has “repeatedly played down,” as Chang describes, so the discovery of liquid water on Mars led to NASA officials opening up more to the idea of Mars being habitable. There have not been any conclusive signs of life on other planets, so scientists being able to find actual living organisms on the surface of Mars would be a huge discovery for the scientific community. Life on Mars would also be significant for people on Earth because of how Mars is one of the closest (and during some periods of time, the closest) planets to Earth, so having life that close to us could foreshadow that there is life on many other planets in the universe.

Overall, I think that Chang’s article was very well-written. Life on Mars has been a topic that has received a lot of attention from the scientific media lately, and Chang did a really good job of finding sources from multiple different science media outlets to enhance his article. Chang also gave a lot of insight into what top scientists on the topic have to say about the new findings of liquid water on Mars, giving us as readers an idea to the conflicting opinions some astronomers have on the issue. Furthermore, Chang gave us a look into NASA’s plans for the future, and what the effects of the finding of liquid on water have for us, like the proposed spacecraft to the Red Planet. I cannot really identify any major flaws in Chang’s writing either. The only thing I can say in terms of what the article could have improved on is that it could have used couple of definitions or explanations into the more advanced scientific terms used in the article, but this was not a very big deal as it was not hard to look up these terms.