Mars holds enough water to cover the entire planet with an ocean about a mile deep, according to a new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. But accessing that water would require drilling wells 6 miles down. On Earth, creating wells that reach even a half mile down is a challenge.
Water was first discovered on Mars in 2020, it was frozen in polar ice caps. But scientists had also noticed signs that much more once flowed on the surface through channels resembling riverbeds. Finding the actual water below the planet’s surface had proved elusive — until a team of researchers turned to data from NASA’s InSight lander. The lander launched in 2018 and used seismic imaging to probe the planet’s mantle, crust, and core.
“The mission greatly exceeded my expectations,” says Michael Manga, a geophysicist at University of California, Berkeley, and one of the paper’s authors.
Discovering Water on Mars
Not only did the mission detect water, it showed that the planet is tectonically active, has had Mars quakes, and has a core that has become demagnetized.
Somewhat ironically, the researchers reached these astounding conclusions using relatively pedestrian methods. The lander sent out seismic waves through the planet at many points.
“Oil and gas companies figure out where to drill and extract oil and gas by using exactly the same techniques we use to use seismic waves and what we call rock physics models to interpret that data,” says Manga.
Because the methodology is so commonplace, Manga is comfortable about their watery interpretation of the modeling data. He cautions, however, that the planet’s groundwater is not held in the rocky equivalent of giant underground tanks, but instead flows through the cracks and fissures that make up the planet’s thick crust.
Read More: Vast Lake Of Liquid Water Discovered On Mars
Researching Surface Water on the Red Planet
The research team’s interest in searching for water on the Red Planet predated the InSight mission.
“We’ve always been as a scientific community fascinated by water on Mars,” says Manga. “Mars’s surface is very cold, so any water on the surface would be frozen today. But as you go deeper below the surface, it gets warmer. And just like we have groundwater on the earth, there should be groundwater on Mars.”
Manga’s team would also like to better understand where the surface water on the planet flowed before it evaporated about 3 billion years ago. Scientists have seen signs of river channels, but Manga would like to find more conclusive evidence of oceans, perhaps by finding signs of beaches, or varying kinds of sediment.
But for now, he doesn’t anticipate any potential Mars colonizer — for instance Elon Musk — drilling a well to access the planet’s water any time soon.
“I don’t even think Mr. Musk would drill,” says Manga “That would be a deep hole.”
Read More: There Is More Evidence of an Ancient Lake with Flowing Rivers on Mars
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Before joining Discover Magazine, Paul Smaglik spent over 20 years as a science journalist, specializing in U.S. life science policy and global scientific career issues. He began his career in newspapers, but switched to scientific magazines. His work has appeared in publications including Science News, Science, Nature, and Scientific American.
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