The lander has been on the Red Planet since 2018 (File)
Singapore:
A study published Monday using data from NASA's Mars InSight lander suggests liquid water exists far beneath the surface of the fourth planet, advancing the search for life there and providing insight into what happened to Mars' ancient oceans.
The lander, which has been on the Red Planet since 2018, has been measuring seismic data for four years, studying how earthquakes shake the ground and determining what materials or substances lie beneath the surface.
Based on that data, the researchers discovered that liquid water was likely deep beneath the lander. Water is considered essential for life, and geological studies show that the planet's surface had lakes, rivers and oceans more than 3 billion years ago.
“On Earth, we know that where it's wet enough and there are enough energy sources, there's microbial life very deep in the subsurface of the Earth,” said one of the authors, Vashan Wright of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego. “The ingredients for life as we know it are in the subsurface of Mars, if these interpretations are correct.”
The research found that large reservoirs of liquid water in fractures at depths of 11.5 kilometers (7.15 miles) to 20 kilometers (12 miles) below Earth's surface best explained the InSight measurements.
It is noted that the amount of liquid water predicted to exist beneath the surface is “greater than the amount of water believed to have filled Mars' hypothesized ancient oceans.”
“On Earth, groundwater infiltrated from the surface” deep underground, Wright said. “We expect this process to have occurred on Mars when the upper crust was warmer than it is today.”
There is no way to directly study water so deep beneath the Martian surface, but the authors say the results “have implications for understanding the water cycle on Mars, determining the fate of past surface water, searching for past or present life, and assessing local resource use for future missions.”
The study, co-authored by Matthias Morzfeld of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Michael Manga of the University of California Berkeley, was published the week of Aug. 12 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“I'm inspired and I hope the public is inspired,” Wright said. “People can work together to put instruments on a planet … and try to understand what's happening there.”
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