Newton Crater: Evidence for Recent Water on Mars
			
		
		
		
			What could have formed these unusual channels?  
Inside a small crater that lies inside large 
Newton Crater on 
Mars, numerous narrow channels run from the 
top down to the crater floor.  
The above picture covers a region spanning about 3000 meters across.  
These and other 
gullies have been found on Mars in 
recent high-resolution pictures taken by the orbiting 
Mars Global Surveyor robot spacecraft.  
Similar channels on Earth are formed by flowing water, 
but on Mars the temperature is normally too cold and the 
atmosphere too thin to sustain 
liquid water.  
Nevertheless, many scientists now hypothesize that 
liquid water did burst out here from underground 
Mars, eroded the gullies, 
and pooled at the bottom as it froze and evaporated.  
If so, life-sustaining 
ice and water might exist 
even today below the 
Martian surface -- 
water that could potentially support a 
human mission to Mars. 
Research into this exciting possibility is sure to continue!