These mysterious dark ‘streaks' on Mars aren't what scientists initially believed
Scientists now say the curious features that stretch for hundreds of meters down Martian slopes were likely signs of wind and dust activity — not water.
'A big focus of Mars research is understanding modern-day processes on Mars — including the possibility of liquid water on the surface,' Adomas Valantinas, a postdoctoral researcher at Brown University, said in a statement. 'Our study reviewed these features but found no evidence of water. Our model favors dry formation processes.'
Valantinas and the University of Bern's Valentin Bickel coauthored the research which was recently published in the journal Nature Communications.
To reach these conclusions, the researchers used a machine learning algorithm to catalog as many of the odd streaks as they could, creating a first-of-its-kind- global Martian map containing some 500,000 from more than 86,000 high-resolution images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Then, they compared their map to databases and catalogs of other factors, including temperature, wind speed, hydration, and rock slide activity. They looked for any correlations over hundreds of thousands of cases.
The authors found that the ominous streaks that don't last for decades, known as recurring slope lineae or RSLs, are not generally associated with factors that suggest a liquid or frost origin. Those factors might include a specific slope orientation, high surface temperature fluctuations, and high humidity. The features were more likely to form in places with above-average wind speed and dust deposition. That points to a dry origin of formation, and they seem to show up in the same locations during the warmest periods of the Martian year before mysteriously vanishing.
They concluded that the older slope streaks, which run down cliff faces and crater walls, most likely form when dust suddenly slides off slopes following seismic activity, winds, or even the shockwaves from meteoroid impacts. The streaks appear most often near recent impact craters, where shockwaves may shake the surface dust loose. The shorter-lived ones are typically found in places where dust devils or rockfalls are frequent.
'There were statistically significant correlations between new impact sites and the appearance of nearby slope streaks in certain regions, supporting this view,' NASA said.
Previously, some had interpreted those streaks as liquid flows. It's possible that small amounts of water could mix with enough salt to create a flow on the frozen Martian surface, Brown University noted. The red planet was once more temperate, and there is water under the surface of Mars. Others believed they were triggered by dry process. These results cast new doubt on slope streaks and RSLs as habitable environments.
'That's the advantage of this big data approach,' Valantinas said. 'It helps us to rule out some hypotheses from orbit before we send spacecraft to explore.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
6 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Harvard study casts new light on why some couples conceive all girls or boys
Harvard study casts new light on why some couples conceive all girls or boys A Harvard study has revealed a link between a woman's age and the likelihood of giving birth to multiple children of the same sex. Siwen Wang, a PhD student in nutritional epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, began researching the topic after noticing a trend in her own family. Her mother was one of three sisters and a younger brother, while her father had two brothers and no sisters. 'I was wondering whether it's just pure chance or if there was some special biology underlying this phenomenon,' she told the Boston Globe. Her questions led to a study published July 18 in Science Advances by her and seven others. The researchers analyzed 146,064 pregnancies from 58,000 US nurses across nearly six decades and discovered that in some families the odds are not so random. The NIH-funded Nurses' Health Study studied the subjects between 1956 and 2015 and found that some families were more likely to have children of the same sex. Researchers found that maternal age played a key role in the sex of the baby. A Harvard study has revealed a link between a woman's age and the likelihood of giving birth to children of the same sex Siwen Wang (pictured), a PhD student at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, began researching the topic after noticing a trend in her own family. Her mother was one of three sisters and a younger brother, while her father had two brothers and no sisters The research found that women who had their first child at age 29 or older were significantly more likely to have multiple children of the same sex. 'It's like moving the needle from 50 to 60 percent,' Dr. Bernard Rosner, a co-author of the study told the outlet. 'I don't think you could use any of this information to definitively predict whether a specific person will have a male or female offspring, but ... it's not necessarily random probability.' The findings also showed that women who already had three children of the same sex were more likely to have a fourth of the same gender. The study showed a 61 percent likelihood for boys and 58 percent for girls. 'If you've had two girls or three girls and you're trying for a boy, you should know your odds are not 50-50,' Jorge Chavarro, professor of nutrition and epidemiology and author of the study, told the Washington Post. The research found that women who had their first child at age 29 or older were significantly more likely to have multiple children of the same sex 'You're more likely than not to have another girl.' 'We don't know why these genes would be associated with sex at birth, but they are, and that opens up new questions,' Chavarro added. Paternal influences on the child's sex were not entirely explored in the study. Researchers did not include detailed data on fathers so they couldn't analyze how paternal factors might influence the sex of children. Despite, the lack of research on the paternal side, Wang did mention that older maternal age is most highly correlated with older paternal age.
Daily Mail
7 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Ancient 250-mile mystery blob is headed straight for New York City
A massive blob of hot rock underneath New England appears to be part of an ancient 'wave' that's moving towards millions of Americans in New York. Scientists said this nearly 250-mile blob called the Northern Appalachian Anomaly (NAA) is roughly 125 miles underground, stretching across Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. A team from the University of Southampton in the UK and the Helmholtz Center for Geosciences in Germany found it using seismic tomography, a method that's like taking a CT scan of the Earth. Unlike typical hot spots near volcanoes, this blob is far inland, hidden beneath the ancient Appalachian Mountains, and it's still moving south, towards New York and New Jersey. Until now, these kinds of mysterious underground formations have only been seen near volcanoes or around the border of tectonic plates. However, New England isn't near either of these. Researchers concluded that it's part of a slow-moving 'mantle wave,' a chain of sinking and rising rock set in motion over 90 million years ago when North America split from Europe near the Labrador Sea, which sits between Canada and Greenland. The NAA's slow creep of roughly 12 miles every million years suggests it will reach New York City in about 15 million years. However, the new study noted that this immense moving blob is not alone, and older blobs could be part of an ongoing 'drip' of heavy rock sinking like a glob of syrup in water under the US. Tom Gernon, lead author of the study and Professor of Earth Science at the University of Southampton, said: 'This thermal upwelling has long been a puzzling feature of North American geology. 'It lies beneath part of the continent that's been tectonically quiet for 180 million years, so the idea it was just a leftover from when the landmass broke apart never quite stacked up.' This discovery has challenged the idea that the eastern US is a 'geologically dead' area, hinting that similar drips, like the Central Appalachian Anomaly (CAA) further south, may have shaped America's mountains millions of years ago. 'The 'mantle wave' refers to a newly-discovered chain reaction of convective instabilities in the mantle that begins when a continent starts to rift,' said Gernon. The study author and his team found that the NAA was likely formed by a Rayleigh-Taylor instability, a process where the mantle became unstable during an ancient breakup of the tectonic plates. The breakup caused a 'drip' of denser material sinking into the mantle, pulling lighter, hotter rock upward to create these blobs, where earthquake waves move slower due to the hotter, less dense rock. This may contribute to fewer earthquakes in the Northeast because the blob creates a softer, more flexible mantle that absorbs tectonic stress, reducing the chance of sudden crustal breaks. However, geologists have noted that the region's overall stability generally comes from its old, thick crust formed long ago. The team's findings, published in the journal Geology, revealed the NAA is currently located near the boundary of a deep geological structure formed by the Laramide Orogeny, suggesting its position is influenced by an ancient tectonic breakup. The Laramide Orogeny, active around 1.5 million years ago, was a period when the Earth's crust was compressed and folded, creating major mountain ranges like the Rockies and leaving a thickened layer of crust beneath parts of the eastern US. By linking the NAA's current position to a tectonic feature from millions of years ago, the study revealed how past continental shifts guide today's underground movements, baffling scientists who thought the eastern US was geologically stable. 'These 'drips' migrate inland over time, away from the rift. We think this same process might explain unusual seismic patterns beneath the Appalachians. The timing lines up perfectly,' Gernon explained to Newsweek. The researchers also proposed that the drips are part of a chain reaction, where one sinking blob triggers another, moving inland over millions of years like a slow underground conveyor belt. For example, the Central Appalachian Anomaly, found in parts of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia, is likely an older drip from this same chain, formed around 135 million years ago. 'It's not a literal wave, but a progressive flow and deformation of mantle material that behaves like a wave in how it propagates,' Gernon noted. Study authors said this process might still be active, as the mantle continues to shift slowly, potentially creating new blobs in the future, though limited seismic data from areas like Newfoundland makes it hard to confirm if newer drips exist yet.
Daily Mail
9 hours ago
- Daily Mail
I'm a relationships expert: these are the commonly missed signs that your female friends are TOXIC (and how to cut them off)
I have gone through more friendship break-ups than I care to admit and, controversially, I believe that makes me a better friend. It might even keep me younger too. A study last week revealed that toxic friendships cause premature biological ageing, comparable to that triggered by smoking. New York University found that social exchanges with so-called frenemies can cause chemical changes to DNA by keeping the body in a state of high stress.
