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An ocean of water beneath the surface of Mars

2024-08-19 21:19:22Lifestyle SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
An ocean of water beneath the surface of Mars
An ocean of water beneath the surface of Mars

Seismic data from NASA's InSight robotic probe suggests that there is a large deposit of water beneath the surface of Mars. It is not only about ice but also normal water.

There is a large, liquid water ocean on Mars, claims a new analysis of data from NASA's InSight robotic probe. This mission was launched in 2018, with the aim of recording seismic activity on the Red Planet and it was soon discovered that – Mars is still alive. This new analysis is another indication that the water on Mars did not evaporate when the planet lost its atmosphere billions of years ago, or that the water was confined to the polar ice caps. However, access to that water is virtually impossible.

It is not a surface ocean, because the water extends through layers of rock, starting at least 11 kilometers below the surface of the planet. According to the calculations of researchers from the University of California in San Diego and Berkeley, it is estimated that there is so much water between the rocks that it could cover the planet and that then the surface of the water would be two kilometers deep.

But even on Earth there is no way to dig 11 kilometers deep, and therefore there is little hope that such a thing can be achieved on Mars.

An ocean of water beneath the surface of Mars
Illustration – Mars four billion years ago

"Insight" seismic data is used for water detection

In the absence of such drilling technology, scientists analyzed the wave data to understand the composition of the planet's crust and the material inside. This data was collected by the Insight probe during its four-year mission, which ended in December 2022.

Among the data were the records of the so-called "Mars Earthquakes", but also the impact of meteors that cause surface earthquakes on this planet. "Insight" recorded the speed at which seismic waves propagate during such events.

The research team used rock physics models to calculate the properties of the Martian crust when these fast-traveling waves pass through it. "The goal is to relate what's inside the rock to the speed of sound," explained Vashan Wright, a geophysicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, who led the analysis. "The denser the rock, the faster sound can penetrate. If you add a little liquid water, the speed will increase. If you break it, the speed will decrease.”

Wright and his colleagues didn't go into the research expecting to find liquid water below the surface — they expected to find any amount of water, from zero to 100 percent, or water seeping through layers of rock.

Data from the InSight probe suggests that any water on Mars in its ancient past moved underground, something similar to groundwater on Earth. "There are a lot of deep questions about Mars that [this study] helps us answer — it gives us clues about the cycle of water movement that hasn't been touched by humans," Wright says.

Where is the water, is there life?

Wright's group is not the first to determine the possibility of liquid water on Mars. Researchers at the California Institute of Technology in 2022 used the Orbiter probe to study salt deposits on the surface of Mars and estimated that water existed there up to two billion years ago.

Studies in the icy polar region of the Red Planet have also suggested that liquid water may exist beneath the cold surface, but a recent study concludes that there may have been misinterpretations in the measurements.

Ten years ago, NASA studies showed that water can flow from time to time on the surface of the planet. All this excites scientists who are still looking for evidence of life on Mars. Because, as on Earth, liquid water is considered an essential ingredient that enables life to evolve. "Water seems to be essential to life," says Wright. "What we know about life and water on Earth is that there is life at depth and that life survives in much more 'harsh' conditions than those on Earth's surface. However, if you find water at great depth, that does not automatically mean life, but it does mean that there is a possibility of it.”

Data from the study were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences./ DW


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