A camera mounted to NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has spotted a big gully on Mars that only formed within the last three years or so, according to SPACE.com.
The $40 million High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera mounted to MRO captured photos of the channel on May 25, 2013. The gully was not present in HiRISE photos taken of the area on Nov. 5, 2010.
NASA unveiled the image for the first time last week.
The channel was found on the slope of a crater wall on Mars' mid-southern latitudes, according to SPACE.com.
NASA said despite the fact that the Mars gully looks like river channels found on Earth, it was likely not carved by "flowing water."
"The dates of the images are more than a full Martian year apart, so the observations did not pin down the Martian season of the activity at this site," officials said in a description of the gully image, according to SPACE.com.
MRO has observed other Martian features that are likely not associated with liquid water, like dark streaks commonly known as recurring slope lineae.
RSL lines snake down crater walls and other slopes during warm weather on Mars. This has led some researchers to think they're caused by briny water that contains an "iron-based antifreeze," according to NASA.
Researchers still don't have direct evidence of flowing water at RSL sites however.
There would be a better chance that Mars hosts life if water currently flows across the surface of the Red Planet from time-to-time.
"Before-and-after HiRISE pairs of similar activity at other sites demonstrate that this type of activity generally occurs in winter, at temperatures so cold that carbon dioxide, rather than water, is likely to play the key role," said NASA officials.
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