Space travel Mars holds a lot of water in its depths
Researchers from the University of California in San Diego have discovered an underground water reservoir on Mars. The water would be enough for an ocean one to two kilometers deep on the entire planet.
The layers of rock on Mars contain a lot of water at a depth of 10 to 20 kilometers. A team led by Vashan Wright from the University of California in San Diego discovered this while analyzing data from the Mars probe "InSight".
"Over three billion years ago, there were large quantities of liquid water on the surface of Mars," explained Wright and his colleagues in the Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences ("PNAS"). Numerous traces of rivers, lakes and a large ocean can be seen on images from Mars probes. Where this water has remained after Mars has almost completely lost its atmosphere is still unclear. One assumption is that a large proportion of the water could have seeped into the subsurface.
To investigate this suspicion, Wright and his colleagues re-analyzed the data from "InSight" and compared it with various models for water-bearing rock layers. The Mars probe, equipped with a seismometer - a device for measuring ground vibrations - took a look inside the Red Planet from 2018 to 2022. This is because the propagation of vibrations in Martian rock caused by Marsquakes or meteorite impacts provides researchers with detailed insights into the internal structure of the planet.
Hardly useful for Mars colonists
After the analysis, the researchers came to the conclusion that the data can best be explained by a water-containing layer of magmatic rock at a depth of 10 to 20 kilometers. However, this water would hardly be usable for future Mars colonists - firstly because of the great depth and secondly because the water is hidden in pores and cracks in the rock and is therefore difficult to extract.
Nevertheless, such a layer would be significant: on Earth, microbes can still be found even at great depths in the rock. "Water is necessary for life as we know it," emphasizes Wright's colleague Michael Manga. "It is therefore not unreasonable to assume that the water-bearing rock layers on Mars could also provide a habitable environment for microbes." The team therefore sees these layers in the depths of the Martian soil as a priority target for the search for microbial life on our neighboring planet.
