Posted by tourdemars to Planetology at April 24, 2008 11:40 PM

There's a growing buzz in the astrobiology community that ancient hydrothermal springs may have been spotted on Mars. Thanks to the eagle-eyed work of Carlton Allen and Dorothy Oehler of NASA's Johnson Space Center, "spring-like" mounds have been found in Vernal Crater in Arabia Terra on the red planet. The high-powered zoom lens of NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has picked up the features - two possible ancient hydrothermal springs are viewed as light-toned, elliptical structures. The martian features have a striking similarity to spring mounds here on Earth, such as those in Dalhousie, Australia.