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Everything You Need to Know About Palikir, the Martian Crater With Flowing Water

NASA says there is likely flowing water on Mars—why haven't we explored it yet?
Image: NASA

So there's probably flowing water on Mars. But before you book tickets to the Palikir Crater Club Med, you'll probably want to know just a bit about Mars's hottest new destination.

Monday, NASA announced that the crater is home to what are probably present day brine flows. That potentially makes it one of the most important places to look for life moving forward. We've known for a few years now that Palikir has the streak formations that NASA now believes suggests there's still water there today—but even that hasn't made it a prime location to send a rover or eventual manned mission. Monday's discovery may change that, because, well, now we're reasonably sure there's something to actually investigate there.

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"Every time there's a planned mission to Mars, researchers come up with their 30-50 favorite spots on Mars and make the case why we should go there," Mikki Osterloo, a Martian geologist who has worked on various Martian missions. "I don't think [Palikir] has ever been in the top 10—this should move it up a couple spots."

Palikir Crater is located inside the much larger Newton Crater, which is about 4,000 kilometers southeast of the Gale Crater, where the Curiosity rover is currently exploring. There's no way Curiosity could make that journey, but NASA officials seemed excited about potentially visiting Palikir one day, either with the planned 2020 rover or with an eventual manned mission.

Image: Google

Palikir's low ranking as a potential rover or human landing spot has been more for logistical reasons rather than scientific interest ones.

"These craters are located in the southern highlands of Mars. For current and previous landed missions, it was generally difficult to land rovers in many regions in the southern highlands due to more limited solar power. Regions near the equator receive more sunlight, which is advantageous for solar powered instruments and rovers," Osterloo told me.

Landing in the southern highlands is also more difficult. You may remember Curiosity Rover's somewhat insane rocket booster-powered landing as being perhaps one of the most impressive engineering feats ever accomplished. Well, Newton and Palikir are located at higher elevations, which would give a spacecraft even less time to slow down on descent.

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That doesn't mean we couldn't ever land there. In fact, John Grunsfeld, a NASA associate administrator, said Monday that the agency believes specially designed spacecraft could go there if properly sterilized to avoid contaminating any potential life that may be there.

"I think the investigation of these with proper planetary protection lays in the domain of future robotic spacecrafts that are designed specifically to go there and designed in a way that they can be properly sterilized," he said.

Image: NASA

But what about a manned mission? NASA and SpaceX both want to fly humans to Mars eventually, and the existence of flowing water on Mars would be extremely helpful when it came to establishing a persistent human presence. The big questions are, of course, whether there's enough water to sustain any sort of human presence and just how salty the water is.

"We do yet know how much water is located at these sites. Or, how much perchlorate is present in the brine," Osterloo said. "Therefore we can't fully assess if these sites would be better than others given that the water may be incredibly limited and the water too brine-rich for human consumption. Or, we'd need technology for desalination if we did decide to land here with a manned mission."

That we might go there at least appears to be an option now:

"Today's announcement," Grunsfeld said, "Is one of the reasons why it's even more imperative we send astrobiologists and planetary scientists to mars to explore the question."