It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
NASA's rover Spirit has found a mineral that is the surest hint yet of water on Mars, NASA scientists said.
Spirit discovered a so-called water-signature mineral called goethite in a section dubbed "Columbia Hills," the scientists said.
"Goethite, like the jarosite that Opportunity found on the other side of Mars, is strong evidence for water activity," said Goestar Klingelhoefer of the University of Mainz, Germany.
He is the lead scientist for the iron-mineral analyser on each rover, the Moessbauer spectrometer.
On the other side of Mars, Opportunity has spotted clouds and frost on the flat plain of Meridiani Planum, a sign of the changing seasons on the planet.
They are caused by water vapour moving from the planet's North Pole toward the South Pole during the current northern-summer and southern-winter period.
A thin frost was observed by Opportunity on the calibration target for its panoramic camera.