It seems like there has been more and more interesting news about our activities and discoveries in space recently. And this most recent one is a biggie!

For the first time ever, scientists have found evidence of stable liquid water on Mars, and that too in a large reservoir under the Southern polar ice caps of the red planet.

The significance of this discovery is really huge as this could mean that there might be more liquid water lakes on Mars which could be crucial for the search for extraterrestrial life and also for our colonisation of the planet in the future.

The scientists published their findings in the journal Science which you can check out here if you want.

The Discovery

Not the actual satellite.

This discovery was possible thanks to the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft that orbits Mars hundreds of kilometres from the surface. On board, there is an instrument called Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS).

This instrument sends radar waves towards the surface of the red planet which can even penetrate the surface and the polar ice caps. The data gathered by this spacecraft between 2012 and 2015, show that under the southern polar ice caps, there is a huge lake of stable liquid water.

The temperatures below the ice caps are supposed to be -68 degree Celsius, too cold for liquid water. But scientists predict that the water is able to remain in its liquid form due to some minerals like magnesium, calcium and sodium which are all present in the Martian rocks.

The scientists concluded that the data they were receiving from radar readings from underneath the ice caps had to be pointing towards a water body as it was similar to those of the glacial lakes under ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica.

This underground lake is said to be 1.5 kilometres under the surface of Mars and 20 kilometres wide. That, is one huge lake!

As I mentioned earlier, this is a really significant discovery as it shows that stable liquid water exists on Mars. This gives us hope that there might be more which will really come in handy for future explorations.

We already knew that water existed on Mars in the form of ice and trace amounts of water vapour in the atmosphere and very short lived flowing liquid water in very small amounts. But this recent one shows that it can remain in the liquid form even though in underground areas.

This is just the beginning in a long drawn process of maybe someday making Mars our second home and to expanding our reaches in the solar system, finally making us a spacefaring civilisation.