Research & Innovation

Completely by coincidence, a joint Irish research team from University College Dublin (UCD) and The Open University (OU), has found evidence of water flows on Mars just one day after NASA announced a similar find.

Led jointly by UCD’s Dr Colman Gallagher, and OU’s Dr Matthew Balme, the team found evidence that water flows exist beneath the glaciers that are found at the polar regions of Mars.

The Mars water discovery announced by NASA has captivated many astronomers and those with an interest in space and science alike, but the news that an Irish-led team has made a similar discovery is an odd coincidence.

The key to their discovery came from the location of eskers near a degraded glacier showing as ridges of sediment similar to a dried-out river bed, which are only formed by sustained flows of liquid water underneath a glacier.

Of course, the obvious question remains as to whether this announcement is a coincidence given NASA’s major news yesterday, but Dr Gallagher has said that this in indeed the case.

“We got a tip-off last week from NASA that they were going to make a big announcement. We’re a small operation and we’re not going to compete with NASA,” Dr Gallagher said earlier on Thursday. “It was probably a good thing because the attention of the media was drawn to Mars over the last few days.”