From what we know now, scientists figure that Mars had plenty of water around three billion years ago. But then as the red planet lost its atmosphere, it also lost its surface water. All that is left is the ice around the poles, too cold and solid to have evaporated or have been flung away into space. But the surface is not the only place a planet can store water.
A study of gravity and seismic waves that travel through Mars' crust yielded data that didn't make sense when compared with the rocky crust. But the anomalies would make sense if there was liquid water trapped in the planet's mid-crust, between 11.5-20 kilometers (7-12 miles) below the surface. Dr. Vashan Wright, lead author of the study, says that if we extrapolate the data to the rest of the planet, the amount of water would fill an ocean one to two kilometers deep.
If there is water in the mid-crust, and it's been there all this time, it opens up the possibility that that water contains some form of life. Read about the implications of this discovery, both for the search for extraterrestrial life and for the future manned missions to Mars, at the Guardian. -via Damn Interesting
(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems)
