Wind and dust, not water: The secret of Mars' lines is finally revealed

 

Mars

Wind and dust, not water: The secret of Mars' lines is finally revealed

After years of scientific debate about the dark streaks that cover the slopes of Mars , the mystery appears to be nearing a solution.
New data captured by the European Space Agency's ExoMars probe, and advanced statistical analysis using artificial intelligence, indicate that these mysterious lines are not caused by saltwater as previously thought, but by the movements of dust, sand, and wind that sculpt the surface of the Red Planet in a stunning spectacle that combines science and cosmic beauty.
The dark lines that appear on the slopes of Mars are known as recurring slope streaks (RSL), a common phenomenon that has long puzzled scientists.
These dark seasonal lines appeared either as a result of the melting of patches of frozen salt water or due to the movement of dry sand on the slopes.
Although the exact cause remains uncertain, recent research has begun to unravel more threads of this Martian mystery, according to the Science Alert website.

dust storm

In December 2023, the European Space Agency's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (ExoMars TGO) captured images of lines formed by a dust-filled landslide on the slopes of Apollinaris Mons on Christmas Eve.
The images, taken by the probe’s Color Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS), showed a faint cluster of meteorite craters and dark traces at the bottom of the slope.
These lines were the focus of a study entitled "Dust, sand and wind drive the formation of slope lines on Mars" published in the journal Nature Communications.
Valentin Tertius-Beckel, a researcher at the Center for Space and Lifeability Studies at the University of Bern in Switzerland, explained that recent statistical evidence suggests that these lines may be caused by "dry" and non-seasonal factors, such as meteorites, Martian earthquakes, and winds.

"Counting the lines"

But Bickel noted that precise quantitative measurements of the rate and frequency of formation of these lines are still limited.
Therefore, the researcher used line data observed by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) between 2006 and 2024, employing artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to analyze more than two million observed lines.
Through this, he developed what he called a "line count," which showed that most of these phenomena are concentrated in five main locations on the surface of Mars over the past nineteen years, and that only about 0.1% of these lines can be dire
ctly attributed to events such as meteorites and Martian earthquakes.
These results provide important evidence that may help resolve the debate about the causes of the dark lines on Mars, and contribute to understanding the dynamic forces that shape the climate of the Red Planet on both seasonal and non-seasonal scales.

Scientists hope that this research will help answer the big questions about Mars: How and when did its surface water disappear? Where did it go? And was it ever capable of supporting life?
These questions are at the heart of the objectives of nine space missions run by five international agencies currently exploring Mars, at a time when space agencies are planning to send more robotic missions, in preparation for manned human missions before the middle of this century.