--- title: Water on Mars a Possibility According to NASA description: NASA’s Curiosity rover has discovered that conditions on Mars are sometimes “favorable” to producing brine in the soil. canonical: https://time.com/3820701/water-mars-life-curiosity-rover-brine-nasa/ author: Helen Regan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-04-14T06:55:38.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:05:15.921Z article:section: Science og:title: There Could Be Water In the Martian Soil, NASA Says og:description: Major requirement for the existence of life? Check. og:url: https://time.com/3820701/water-mars-life-curiosity-rover-brine-nasa/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd69a3d92a0692897/6987eae65f570f1860b191e3/nasa-curiosity-rover.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2627 og:image:height: 1478 og:image:alt: NASA's Mars Curiosity rover is pictured in this self-portrait where the rover drilled into a sandstone target called "Windjana" on Mars in this handout photo. June 2014. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: There Could Be Water In the Martian Soil, NASA Says twitter:description: Major requirement for the existence of life? Check. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd69a3d92a0692897/6987eae65f570f1860b191e3/nasa-curiosity-rover.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Water Could Be Forming in the Martian Soil Under Certain Conditions > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Future Proof: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Future Proof is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. Making sense of the climate and energy economy. Future Proof examines the forces transforming energy and climate, and what those changes mean for business, technology, policy and the global economy. Senior correspondent Justin Worland goes beyond traditional climate coverage to connect the energy transition to the bigger decisions reshaping companies, markets and society. 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Future Proof is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-futureproof-2026q3/newsletters?i=5f830f67-cb81-444a-a71b-b3b8ab4b9f65&cr=time-nl-futureproof-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The Making of Mount Sharp - NASA [Watch (HLS stream): The Making of Mount Sharp - NASA](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/mFfsxm2r.m3u8) (2:17)  _Published 2015-04-14. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory shows us how a Martian mountain came to be in the story behind Curiosity's current location on Mars._ by [Helen Regan](https://time.com/author/helen-regan/) ## Helen Regan Apr 14, 2015 6:55 AM UTC  NASA's Mars Curiosity rover is pictured in this self-portrait where the rover drilled into a sandstone target called "Windjana" on Mars in this handout photo. June 2014. NASA's Mars Curiosity rover is pictured in this self-portrait where the rover drilled into a sandstone target called "Windjana" on Mars in this handout photo. June 2014. NASA/Reuters by [Helen Regan](https://time.com/author/helen-regan/) ## Helen Regan Apr 14, 2015 6:55 AM UTC NASA’s Curiosity rover has [discovered ](http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1802)that conditions on Mars are “favorable” to producing briny water in the soil, which could in turn imply that water could form all over the surface of the Red Planet if certain conditions are met. Scientists found that the soil in the Gale Crater of Mars contained perchlorate, a salt that acts as a kind of anti-freeze by absorbing water vapor from the atmosphere, lowering the freezing temperature of the water. Curiosity’s latest findings — published as a study in _Nature Geosciences_ — have led NASA scientists to suggest that, during certain cold nights, the temperature and humidity levels are just right for brine to form in the soil, drying out after sunrise. Liquid water is a requirement for life, the study’s lead author Javier Martin-Torres said. But the data doesn’t mean the rover will unearth E.T. on its next mission. “Conditions near the surface of present-day Mars are hardly favorable for microbial life as we know it, but the possibility for liquid brine on Mars has wider implications for habitability and geological water-related processes,” he said. The latest study analyzes the planet’s humidity and temperature for a full Martian year. The data shows that brine should be forming all over the planet, especially at higher altitudes. “Gale Crater is one of the least likely places on Mars to have conditions for brines to form, compared to sites at higher latitudes or with more shading,” said co-author of the report Alfred McEwen. Since Curiosity landed on the Martian planet in August 2012, it has found strong evidence to suggest that ancient stream-beds and lakes existed more than three billion years ago. To discover how these environmental conditions evolved, the rover is now examining Mount Sharp, a mountain with sediment layers that lies at the center of the Gale Crater. ## Transcript I am Ashwin Vasavada, Deputy Project Scientist for the Mars Science Laboratory Mission and this is your Curiosity Rover report. Curiosity has spent the last two months studying the first rocks that we can tie to the base of Mount Sharp, the three mile high mountain at the center of Gale Crater. This is our first look at what the mountain's made of. We're now sure more than ever that we're going to learn a lot about the early history of Mars, it's changing climate, and the potential for Mars to support life. To tell you why we are so excited, we have to go back a few months when we were a few miles from Mount Sharp. At that point, our team started noticing distinct patterns in the rocks around us. There were tilted beds of sandstone all facing south in the direction of Mount Sharp. the geologists in our team concluded that these tilted beds of sandstones formed were streams empty into standing bodies of water like lakes. The sediments carried by the flowing water sink when they enter the lake. Forming a sloped wall that slowly advances forward as sediment continues to fall. In September of this year, curiosity arrived at the rocks that form the base of Mount Sharp itself. What we found waiting for us was a new type of rock, one that forms when tiny particles of settlement slowly settle out within a lake, forming mud at the lake bottom. These mud stones are very finely layered, suggesting that the river and lake system was going through cycles of change. Our hypothesis is this. Where now there is a mountain, there once was a lake. Over a span of perhaps millions of years, water flowed from the northern rim of Gale Crater towards the center, bringing sediment that slowly formed the lower layers of Mount Sharp. At any one time, the lake may only have been a few meters deep, just enough to form those sandstone deltas and thin layers of mud. But fluctuations in the water supply, or in the climate, allowed this to happen over and over, slowly building up the mountain. Over the next few months, we'll continue to climb up the lower layers of Mount Sharp, to see if our hypothesis for how it formed holds up. We will also look at the chemistry of the rocks to see if the water that was once present would have been the kind that cold support microbial life if it ever was present. With only 30 vertical feet of the mountain behind us we are sure there is a lot more to discover. 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