SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Scientists are now using some of the newest technology on Earth to unravel the most ancient secrets about the planet Mars. Member station KUNC's Rae Solomon has the story about how artificial intelligence is uncovering surprising links between the two planets.
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UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: For centuries, science has studied Mars, the only planet where life may exist.
RAE SOLOMON, BYLINE: Maybe it's the intriguing red color, but us earthlings have always been drawn to the planet Mars. Hydrologist Lin Ji is no exception. The University of Arizona researcher and freshly minted Ph.D. usually studies the Lower Colorado River Basin, solidly on Earth. But a few years ago, she grew fascinated by satellite images of the red planet. That's why she noticed something interesting looking down at Arizona's Santa Cruz River out her airplane window.
LIN JI: I thought, oh, this Santa Cruz River system looked exactly the same to the Martian valleys. They both have, like, a tree-like branching river systems. So I realized that there could have be a connection between the Earth's river system and of the Mars valley network.
SOLOMON: A connection that spans 140 million miles through the cold, dark vacuum of outer space.
LIN: They share similar characteristics, which indicate that they could have a similar climate.
SOLOMON: For the Lower Colorado, that means an arid climate, where rain is rare but heavy when it comes, and flash flooding so powerful, it can carve up a landscape. That doesn't sound much like today's Mars, all cold and ice-capped with a surface mostly devoid of liquid water. But those Martian valleys are billions of years old. Some scientists say the planet may have been warm back then, and water plentiful. Ji's work suggests there was also flash flooding.
LIN: The valley networks on Mars is also formed by high-intensity rainfall.
SOLOMON: Just like the Lower Colorado. But river basins aren't shaped by flooding alone, says University of Colorado geologist Lon Abbott. Overlapping forces like ice age cycles and plate tectonics are just as important.
LON ABBOTT: It's a really complex interplay of different factors that have different time scales.
SOLOMON: That complexity makes a straightforward comparison between the two planets difficult. There's just so much data. So Lin Ji used a new tool built for complexity - machine learning. Step 1 - train your model on massive amounts of data about climate and river system formations on Earth. Step 2 - unleash it on the geography of Mars.
LIN: To help inform the - what climate might be on the early Mars.
SOLOMON: And if she's right about the Martian climate, Scott Hubbard says that could help resolve one of humanity's all-time obsessions.
SCOTT HUBBARD: Was Mars habitable? Was it an environment that, if life emerged, it would be able to live long and prosper?
SOLOMON: Hubbard had a long career at NASA and was the first director of the agency's Mars program.
HUBBARD: Understanding how the climate evolved would tell us a lot about if life did form where it might be today.
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SOLOMON: He says humans could be just a few years away from putting feet on Martian ground. Anticipating where life might still exist there could be the key to a successful mission.
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UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: A planet of wonders.
SOLOMON: For NPR News, I'm Rae Solomon on Earth.
(SOUNDBITE OF ZZ TOP'S "ASLEEP IN THE DESERT") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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