Reservoir of liquid water found deep in Martian rocks
Scientists discovered liquid water reservoirs deep in Mars' crust using NASA's Mars Insight Lander data, enhancing understanding of the Martian water cycle and suggesting potential habitats for extraterrestrial life.
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Scientists have discovered a reservoir of liquid water located deep within the Martian crust, based on data from NASA's Mars Insight Lander. This finding, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, marks the first identification of liquid water on Mars, despite previous evidence of frozen water at the poles and vapor in the atmosphere. The Insight Lander, operational from 2018 until its mission concluded in December 2022, recorded over 1,319 Mars quakes, allowing researchers to analyze seismic waves to infer the presence of liquid water at depths of 10 to 20 kilometers. This discovery is significant for understanding the Martian water cycle and the planet's climatic evolution. Researchers estimate that if similar reservoirs exist across Mars, there could be enough liquid water to cover the surface with a layer over half a mile deep. However, the water's depth poses challenges for potential colonization efforts, as accessing it would require drilling deep into the crust. The presence of liquid water also raises the possibility of habitable environments on Mars, which could be crucial for the search for extraterrestrial life.
- Liquid water reservoirs have been found deep in Mars' crust.
- The discovery was made using data from NASA's Mars Insight Lander.
- The water is located at depths of 10 to 20 kilometers, complicating access for colonization.
- This finding enhances understanding of Mars' water cycle and climate evolution.
- The presence of liquid water may indicate potential habitats for life on Mars.
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4 comments- "Mars may host oceans’ worth of water deep underground" [according to an analysis of seismic data] https://www.planetary.org/articles/mars-may-host-oceans-wort... :
> Now, a team of scientists has used Marsquakes — measured by NASA’s InSight lander years ago — to see what lies beneath. Since the way a Marsquake travels depends on the rock it’s passing through, the researchers could back out what Mars’ crust looks like from seismic measurements. They found that the mid-crust, about 10-20 kilometers (6-12 miles) down, may be riddled with cracks and pores filled with water. A rough estimate predicts these cracks could hold enough water to cover all of Mars with an ocean 1-2 kilometers (0.6-1.2 miles) deep
> [...] This reservoir could have percolated down through nooks and crannies billions of years ago, only stopping at huge depths where the pressure would seal off any cracks. The same process happens on our planet — but unlike Mars, Earth’s plate tectonics cycles this water back up to the surface
> [...] “It would be very challenging,” Wright said. Only a few projects have ever bored so deep into Earth’s crust, and each one was an intensive undertaking. Replicating that effort on another planet would take lots of infrastructure, Wright goes on, and lots of water.
How much water does drilling take on Earth?
We use rock physics models and Bayesian inversion to identify combinations of lithology, liquid water saturation, porosity, and pore shape consistent with the constrained mid-crust (∼11.5 to 20 km depths) seismic velocities and gravity near the InSight lander. A mid-crust composed of fractured igneous rocks saturated with liquid water best explains the existing data.
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