PHYSICAL AND THERMODYNAMICAL EVIDENCE OF LIQUID WATER ON MARS.

Introduction: The objective of the Phoenix Mars mission is to determine if Mars’ polar region can support life. Since liquid water is a basic ingredient for life, as we know, an important goal of the mission is to determine if liquid water exists in the region. Here we show physical and thermodynamical evidence that liquid saline-water exists in areas disturbed by the Phoenix lander. Moreover, we show that the thermodynamics of freezing/thaw cycles ranging from diurnal to climatic time-scales leads to the formation of saline solutions with freezing temperatures much higher than current summer ground temperatures on most of the areas where Mars Odyssey’s Gamma Ray Spectrometer detected near surface water. Thus, we hypothesize that liquid saline-water is common on Mars. This discovery has important implications for the stability of water, weathering, glaciology, mineralogy, geochemistry and the habitability of Mars. Liquid Water on Mars: The water vapor pressure