David Bowie once asked the famous question of whether there is life on Mars – and we may be one step closer to answering that question.
Enough water has been discovered in the crust to cover the surface of Mars, The Sun reported. This has profound implications for our understanding of the planet and may provide “evidence of extraterrestrial life.”
What was found?
“Once upon a time,” Space says, there was “plenty of liquid water” on the surface of Mars, with oceans, lakes and rivers, “but the water disappeared about 3 billion years ago.” This means that Mars rovers have explored “dry lake beds and empty riverbeds.”
Subscribe The week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news and analysis from multiple perspectives.
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
Sign up for the free weekly newsletter
From our morning news roundup to our weekly Good News newsletter, get the best of the week delivered straight to your inbox.
From our morning news roundup to our weekly Good News newsletter, get the best of the week delivered straight to your inbox.
But data from a NASA mission between 2018 and 2022 has found evidence of an underground water reservoir. The space agency’s lander carried a seismometer on board that “recorded vibrations – marsquakes – from deep within the Red Planet for four years,” according to the BBC.
The team used the same techniques used to search for water on Earth or oil and gas. They were excited about their discovery, but “there’s a problem,” Forbes said.
This water is “deep,” Space explained – “very deep.” It is between 11.5 and 20 kilometers deep (7.1 and 12.4 miles), and there is no water at all in the Earth’s crust above 5 kilometers deep (3.1 miles).
Why is this important?
Despite their unfortunate depth, the aquifers – if they exist – “could provide new insights into the dynamics of Mars’ drying,” wrote The Economist, and if Mars “was ever home to life,” “they could be the habitat of its last survivors.”
We “have found no evidence of life on Mars,” said planetary science professor Michael Manga of the University of California, Berkeley, but “at least we have identified a place where, in principle, there should be life.”
Have you ever wanted to live on Mars? This latest discovery could bring that possibility closer. On The Conversation, Sven Bilén explored “what it would take” to transform Mars’ “barren landscape” into “a world that is conducive to life,” explaining that humans would need “liquid water, food, shelter, and an atmosphere with enough oxygen to breathe and enough density to retain heat and protect against solar radiation.”
What happens next?
Don’t put your house up for sale just yet, because reaching the water would require “drills far beyond the capabilities of current Mars robots,” wrote The Economist, and “even on Earth it would be difficult.”
Nevertheless, space scientists are excited about the development. Exploration could be expanded. More seismometers could be sent to Mars and other planets and moons in our solar system in the future, CNN said. “Spreading them out across Mars” could reveal changes in the planet’s interior and provide a better picture of its diverse and complex history.
