Stuart Rankin / FlickrBillions of years ago, the Red Planet’s now arid, cratered surface was likely covered in rivers and oceansStuart Rankin / Flickr
A large reservoir of liquid water may be hidden beneath the surface of Mars, similar in size to one of the oceans on Earth’s surface, according to the analysis of data recorded by NASA’s InSight Lander. The water is stored within porous rocks at depths of 11.5 to 20 kilometers—even on Earth, digging that deep would be a major undertaking. The findings indicate that rather than being lost into space, much of the water once found in rivers, lakes, and oceans on the Red Planet filtered into the crust more than 3 billion years ago. Only ice remained on the surface, mostly in polar ice caps. A team led by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, used a mathematical model of rock physics, identical to those used on Earth to map underground aquifers and oil fields, to conclude that the existence of a deep layer of fractured igneous rock saturated with liquid water is the most likely explanation for the data from Insight. The robot recorded more than 1,300 seismic tremors, meteor impacts, and rumbles from volcanic areas before ceasing operations two years ago (PNAS and University of Berkley, August 12).
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