Traces of liquid water under the surface of Mars!
On Mars since 2018, the InSight lander has collected evidence of liquid water on the Red Planet! That's according to a study co-authored by Matthias Morsfeld of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Michael Manga of the University of California, Berkeley. It was published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesThis article is based on seismic data recorded over a four-year period.
By studying the tremors caused by Martian earthquakes and analyzing the materials and substances found beneath the surface, they were able to determine the presence of traces of liquid water beneath the surface of Mars, confirming that the Red Planet was home to lakes, rivers and oceans more than three billion years ago.
Buried microbial life?
“On Earth, we know that when there is enough moisture and energy sources, microbial life can exist deep below the surface.” Fashan Wright remembersfrom the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, one of the study's authors. “If these explanations are correct, the ingredients necessary for life as we know it could also exist beneath the surface of Mars.”
More specifically, this study estimates that the data collected by the probe will prove the existence of large reservoirs of liquid water, located in cracks at a depth of between 11.5 and 20 kilometers below the surface. On Earth, groundwater seeps from the surface deep into the Earth's interior.Fashion Wright continues. “We think a similar process may have occurred on Mars, when the upper crust was much hotter than it is today.”
Water on Mars could fill the ocean on Earth
The latter speculates that if InSight's location on Elysium Planitia, near the equator of Mars, represented the rest of the Red Planet, the groundwater would be enough to fill our ocean to a depth of 1 to 2 kilometers!
As on Earth, it is impossible to drill that deep to obtain conclusive evidence, but its scientists believe that the seismic data is sufficient to understand “The Martian water cycle, determining the fate of ancient surface water, searching for past or present life forms, and assessing available resources for future missions.”
Mars was largely covered in water more than 3 billion years ago, and gradually lost its surface water bodies as its atmosphere diminished, giving way to the dry, dusty surface we know. Credit: NASA