Seasonal flows on warm Martian slopes are thought to be either salty water flows occurring during the warmest months on Mars, or dry grains that "flow" downslope of at least 27 degrees.
Reprojected view of warm-season flows in Newton Crater
Image of disk of Mars taken by Viking. Arrow shows location of recurrent slope lineae in following HiRISE images.
Close, color view of recurrent slope lineae, as seen by HiRISE under HiWish program Arrows point to some of the recurrent slope lineae. Fan may have been built up by past recurrent slope lineae.
Recurrent slope lineae elongate when the slopes are at their warmest. Near the equator, RSL elongate on northern slopes in the northern summer and on the southern slopes in the southern summer.
Climate of Mars
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The climate of Mars has been a topic of scientific curiosity for centuries, in part because it is the only terrestrial planet whose surface can be easily directly observed in detail from Earth with he
Seasonal flows on warm Martian slopes
…The flows are narrow (0.5 to 5 meters) and exhibit relatively dark markings on steep (25° to 40°) slopes, appear and incrementally grow during warm seasons and fade in cold seasons. Liquid brines near the surface have been proposed to explain this activity, or interactions between sulfates and chlorine…
Martian morning clouds (Viking Orbiter 1, 1976)
Mars – most abundant gases – (Curiosity rover, Sample Analysis at Mars device, October 2012)
June 6, 2018
November 25, 2012