If you want to get excited about scientific advances from space, sometimes you have to accept that the most exciting things are often the ones that are least feasible.
For example, a study just published by the University of California has found that scientists may have finally discovered that all the water that disappeared from the surface of Mars three billion years ago ended up in cracks in the Martian mantle.
The water undoubtedly offers the best chance to clarify once and for all whether the once wet and river-filled Martian landscape ever hosted or still hosts microbial life.
The only catch is that the water is 20 kilometers below the planet’s surface, five miles deeper than the deepest hole ever drilled into the Earth.
Seismic data from NASA’s Insight lander indicated deep, porous rock filled with enough water to cover the entire surface of the Red Planet with an ocean 1 mile deep.
The discovery is significant because it has been assumed for years that the oceans disappeared from the surface of Mars more than three billion years ago.
“Understanding Mars’ water cycle is critical to understanding the evolution of its climate, surface and interior,” said Dr. Vashan Wright of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.
Wright and his colleagues used a mathematical model of rock physics on Mars that is identical to those used on Earth to map underground aquifers and oil fields. They concluded that Insight’s seismic data was best explained by a deep layer of fractured igneous rock saturated with liquid water.
“Finding that there is a large reservoir of liquid water provides insight into what the climate was or might have been like then,” added study co-author Professor Michael Manga of UC Berkeley.
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Riverbeds, deltas, and lake deposits, as well as water-altered rocks, all support the theory that water once flowed on the surface of Mars, but that this wet period ended over three billion years ago after Mars lost its atmosphere.
Planetary scientists have sent probes and landers to the Red Planet to find out what happened to the water. They say the water frozen in Mars’ polar caps can’t explain everything – including when it happened and whether there is or was life on the planet.
The new findings suggest that much of the water did not escape into space but penetrated the Earth’s crust.
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“And … I see no reason why (the underground reservoir) shouldn’t be a habitable environment. On Earth it certainly is – deep, deep mines host life, the sea floor hosts life.
“We have not found evidence of life on Mars, but we have at least identified a place where life should in principle be possible,” he said.
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Insight was officially “released” on Twitter at the time after critical power outages seemingly forced the robotic seismograph to shut down. While it won’t measure any more “Marsquakes,” the data it has already collected could outlast its noble, metallic soul for years to come.
SHARE these important insights about Mars from the Insight Lander…
