Using seismic activity to probe the interior of Mars, geophysicists have found evidence for a large underground reservoir of liquid water — enough to fill oceans on the planet’s surface.
The data from NASA’s Insight lander allowed the scientists to estimate that the amount of groundwater could cover the entire planet to a depth of between 1 and 2 kilometers, or about a mile.
While that’s good news for those tracking the fate of water on the planet after its oceans disappeared more than 3 billion years ago, the reservoir won’t be of much use to anyone trying to tap into it to supply a future Mars colony. It’s located in tiny cracks and pores in rock in the middle of the Martian crust, between 11.5 and 20 kilometers (7 to 13 miles) below the surface. Even on Earth, drilling that deep would be a challenge.
The finding does pinpoint another promising place to look for life on Mars, however, if the reservoir can be accessed. For the moment, it helps answer questions about the geological history of the planet.
“Understanding the Martian water cycle is critical for understanding the evolution of the climate, surface and interior,” said Vashan Wright, a former UC Berkeley postdoctoral fellow who is now an assistant professor at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “A useful starting point is to identify where water is and how much is there.”
Wright, alongside colleagues Michael Manga of UC Berkeley and Matthias Morzfeld of Scripps Oceanography, detailed their analysis in a paper that will appear this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.