Liquid Water Discovered on Mars – Does It Make Life Possible?

NASA's InSight spacecraft provides crucial data about the interior of Mars. A research team finds a significant water reserve.

BERKELEY – A team of scientists has discovered a vast underground reservoir of water on the surface of Mars. The discovery could change future exploration of the Red Planet and impact the search for potential life on Mars, as water stored deep in the Martian interior could indicate conditions favorable for life.

The data that helped the research team discover the water deposits came from NASA’s InSight spacecraft, which landed on Mars in 2018. Among other things, the lander examined the interior of the Red Planet with a seismometer and recorded several marsquakes as strong as magnitude 5. InSight was also able to record meteorite impacts. Although the mission was completed in 2022, the data collected still provides valuable insights into the interior of Mars.

There is liquid water deep within Mars.

The research team, led by Fashan Wright (UC Berkeley and Scripps Institution of Oceanography), found evidence in the data for a large-scale water reservoir in the middle crust of Mars. The researchers used a mathematical model used on Earth to map underground oil fields. The study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Published.

Data from NASA’s lander suggests that water is present in microscopic cracks and pores in Martian rocks at depths of between 11.5 and 20 kilometers. This means that the water cannot be accessed directly for research purposes – to do that, you would have to be able to drill to very great depths, which is difficult to achieve even on Earth. However, this new discovery is important for research, because after all, researchers have long been trying to figure out how Mars lost its water three billion years ago and where it went.

Discovery of a “large reservoir of liquid water” inside Mars

“Understanding the water cycle on Mars is critical to understanding the evolution of the planet’s climate, surface, and interior,” Wright notes in his article. Note“The discovery of a large reservoir of liquid water provides insight into what the climate was or could have been like,” adds his colleague Michael Manga (UC Berkeley). “Water is as essential to life as life is to life,” the professor of Earth and planetary sciences says. “We know that.”

According to the research team, there is so much water inside Mars that it could cover the entire red planet with an ocean one to two kilometers deep. However, given its depth, it is unlikely to be usable as a water source for future Mars settlers.

Liquid Water on Mars: A 'Habitable Environment'

However, the manga world offers an interesting idea: “I don't know why [das unterirdische Reservoir] It shouldn’t be a habitable environment. “On Earth, this is certainly the case: deep mines harbor life, the ocean floor harbors life,” the researcher said. “We haven’t found any evidence of life on Mars, but at least we have identified a place that should, in principle, be able to support life.” (unpaid invoice)