New research indicates that Mars may have significant amounts of water hidden beneath its surface, enough to potentially form a global ocean.
This discovery is based on seismic measurements from NASA’s Mars Insight lander, which detected over 1,300 Mars quakes before it ceased operations two years ago.
According to findings released on Monday, this water is believed to be located seven to twelve miles (11.5 to 20 kilometres) beneath the Martian crust, media outlets reported.
Lead scientist Vashan Wright from the University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography explained that this water was likely to have seeped from the surface billions of years ago when Mars had rivers, lakes, and possibly oceans.
Wright clarified that the presence of water does not necessarily mean there is life on Mars. “Instead, our findings mean that there are environments that could be habitable.”
The research team used a combination of computer models and data from the InSight lander, including the velocity of the Mars quakes, to determine that underground water is the most plausible explanation. The results were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
If the InSight’s location at Elysium Planitia, near Mars’ equator, represents the planet, the underground water could be enough to fill a global ocean up to two kilometres deep, Wright noted.
However, verifying the presence of water and searching for signs of microbial life would require drilling and other equipment.
Although the InSight lander stopped working in 2022, scientists continue to analyse the data it collected from 2018 to 2022, seeking more information about Mars’ interior.
Mars, which could have had water over three billion years ago, is thought to have lost its surface water as its atmosphere thinned, transforming it into the dry, dusty world known today.
Scientists theorise that much of this ancient water either escaped into space or remains buried below the surface.
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