Mars may have liquid water—a huge lake nestled under the ice cap at the planet’s southern pole, researchers report today (July 25) in Science. Planetary scientists have debated for decades whether the Red Planet has liquid water, usually discussing the possible presence of small amounts that quickly appear and disappear, but the new discovery suggests Mars has a large, standing reservoir of water.
“This is potentially a really big deal,” planetary scientist Briony Horgan of Purdue University tells Science News. “It’s another type of habitat in which life could be living on Mars today.”
Roberto Orosei of the National Institute of Astrophysics in Bologna, Italy, and his colleagues detected a bright spot at the southern pole using radar data taken with the Mars Express spacecraft from May 2012 to December 2015. The team ruled out that carbon dioxide ice or other features created the spot and were left with one ...
