Is there an ocean of underground water under Mars?

A group of scientists has just published a new study showing that the interior of Mars has the potential to contain a huge amount of underground water, which could create oceans on the surface of this planet, according to CNN. The study was published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on August 12.

Mars imaged by the Hubble telescope in 2016

The study used data collected by the seismometer on NASA's InSight lander during its 2018-2022 mission. For four years, the device measured seismic data on Mars and identified material below the surface of Earth's neighbor.

According to research, there is a large amount of underground water below the cracks and crevices in the Martian crust. This crust is 11.5-20 km deep. The research team believes that the amount of water below is so large that it can cover the entire Mars to a depth of up to 1.6 km.

Illustration of the depth of groundwater inside Mars and the InSight spacecraft

PHOTO: Scripps Institution of Oceanography /CNN

After much research, scientists believe that Mars was once a warm and wet planet billions of years ago. Many missions have been developed to understand the history of water on the red planet and whether it ever supported life there.

While water is frozen at the planet's poles, researchers don't believe all of Mars' water is frozen. Many theorize that traces of water have disappeared, and according to the new study, that water has been drained into the planet's lower crust.

NASA seismometer captured by InSight in December 2022

PHOTO: REUTERS/NASA/JPL-Caltech

"On Earth, what we know is that where there is enough moisture and enough energy, there will be microbial life very deep below the surface of the Earth. The ingredients for life as we know it exist below the surface of Mars if these interpretations are correct," said Vashan Wright, a geophysicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego, one of the study's authors.

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