The surface of Mars is littered with channels that appear to be the work of ancient water flows. Indeed, some of these channels meander back and forth like slow-moving streams on our planet. Channels can be carved by lava, wind and glaciers, but these processes can’t explain all the features on Mars.
“We’ve gotten over the hump and can now agree that water flowed on the martian surface in the past,” says Alan Howard of the University of Virginia.
But how much and when is still unclear. Howard believes the meandering channels on Mars may tell us a lot about the wet history of our planetary neighbor.
Howard and a group of researchers will be tromping into the desert and the arctic to find terrestrial “meanders” that might explain their counterparts on Mars.