A huge lake of salty water appears to be buried deep in Mars, scientists reported this week. The presence of water raises the chances of finding life on the red planet. The discovery is based on observations by a European spacecraft. It has excited experts. Water is necessary for life, and scientists have long hoped to prove that it is present on Mars.
Cassie Stuurman is a geophysicist at the University of Texas. In 2016, she found evidence of a huge ice deposit(沉积)on Mars. “If these researchers are right, this is the first time we've found evidence of a large water body on Mars. ”Stuurman said. Researchers are not yet sure how deep the area of water is. So, they cannot say whether it is an underground pool, or just an area of soft and wet soil.
In order to find the water, Italian researchers examined radar signals. The signals were collected over three years by the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft. The results suggest that a 20-kilometer-wide water body lies below ice that is 1.5 kilometers thick. They believe the area is close to the planet's southern pole.
Mars is very cold, but salt in the water may have kept it from freezing. It is the same as when you put salt on a road to prevent ice from forming. The water would be extremely cold, right at the point where it's about to freeze. And it would be salty. Such conditions are not ideal for life to form. But, she said there are bacteria on the earth that have been able to survive in similar conditions.
Mars has been a popular planet for exploration, with some groups placing instruments on its surface and others examining it from space. In May, NASA launched another spacecraft, the InSight Mars lander which will dig deep into the data under the surface after it reaches a flat area of the planet in November.
