Scientists Discover Possible Underground Water on Mars – What This Means for Life on the Red Planet

Scientists have made an exciting discovery that could change how we think about Mars. Thanks to NASA’s InSight lander, researchers now believe there might be liquid water deep beneath the Martian surface. This discovery brings new hope in the search for life beyond Earth.

How They Made This Discovery

NASA’s InSight lander arrived on Mars in 2018. It carried a special instrument called SEIS (Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure) – basically a super-sensitive device that can detect vibrations traveling through the planet. These vibrations, called seismic waves, help scientists understand what’s inside Mars, similar to how doctors use ultrasound to see inside our bodies.

The InSight lander detected something interesting about 10 kilometers (about 6 miles) below the surface. There was a sudden change in how fast the seismic waves were traveling. Scientists Ikuo Katayama from Hiroshima University and Yuya Akamatsu from the Research Institute for Marine Geodynamics studied these waves and came up with a new explanation for what might be happening.

Cracks Filled With Water?

Previous scientists thought these changes in wave speed meant the rocks changed in composition or had different sized spaces (porosity) between them. But Katayama and Akamatsu had a different idea. What if this change shows where dry cracks in rocks become filled with liquid water?

To test this theory, they conducted experiments in their laboratory. The scientists used diabase rock from Sweden, which is similar to Martian crustal rocks. They created cracks in these rocks and tested how seismic waves moved through them when they were dry, filled with water, and frozen.

What they found was exciting – the seismic patterns in water-filled rocks matched what InSight detected on Mars. As Katayama explained, “If liquid water exists on Mars, the presence of microbial activity is possible.”

Why This Matters

Why is finding water on Mars such a big deal? For several reasons:

Potential for life: On Earth, where there’s water, there’s usually life. If Mars has liquid water, it might support simple life forms like bacteria.
Protection from harsh conditions: The surface of Mars is extremely cold and bombarded by harmful radiation. But deep underground, water would be protected from these conditions.
Future exploration: Knowing where water might exist helps scientists plan future missions that could drill or probe these areas.

How is Water Possible on Modern Mars?

You might be wondering how liquid water could exist on Mars today. The planet’s surface is too cold and the atmospheric pressure too low for water to remain liquid on the surface – it would either freeze or evaporate immediately.

However, deep underground is a different story. As you go deeper into any planet, pressure increases because of all the rock above. This pressure can keep water in a liquid state even at lower temperatures. Also, the inside of Mars is still warm from its formation and from radioactive elements in its core, providing enough heat to maintain liquid water at certain depths.

The scientists believe that around 10 kilometers deep, the temperature and pressure conditions are just right for water to exist in liquid form in the cracks between rocks.

What’s Next?

This research, published in the scientific journal Geology, doesn’t definitively prove there’s water or life on Mars. But it adds another piece to the puzzle and gives scientists new areas to focus on.

Future missions to Mars might include technology that can detect this underground water more directly or even sample it. Who knows – the first evidence of life beyond Earth might not be found on the surface of Mars, but hidden beneath it.

The search for water and life on Mars has been ongoing for decades, but with each new discovery like this one, we get closer to answering one of humanity’s biggest questions: Are we alone in the universe?

(SOURCES: Daily Galaxy, GeoScience World | Cover Photo: Wikipedia)