An epic discovery has been made by NASA. The US space agency announced on September 28 about the discovery of liquid water flowing on Martian surface. The water is saline and the discovery has been made under specific atmospheric temperatures.

The discovery was possible because of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), a satellite equipped with imaging spectrometry. The MRO first observed the water in 2010 and clicked images of flowing hydrated salts.

Study's lead researcher Lujendra Ojha of the Georgia Institute of Technology was of the view that the water was moving down during warm seasons and still in colder seasons. It is quite difficult to find liquid water on Mars because of severely low pressure atmosphere.

The discovery is indeed monumental. Around a century back, even the idea of exploring Mars was not more than a mere fantasy of science fiction. But then the Space Race came in the late 1950s and NASA's Mariner program took the first close-up images of Martian surface.

Since then, a lot of time has passed by and much advancement has been made. Scientists said that it would be fine to affirm that discovery of liquid water on Mars is not the end of a phase of exploration, but a beginning of it.

Now, NASA considers the idea of sustaining life to be more possible as scientists continue to explore to find out the more exciting things on Mars.

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is a multipurpose spacecraft designed to conduct reconnaissance and exploration of Mars from orbit. The US$720 million spacecraft was built by Lockheed Martin under the supervision of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.