New Delhi, India

A massive reservoir of liquid water, equal to an ocean, has been found hiding under Mars, a recent study claims. The water deposit found fractured within igneous rocks, is so huge that it is enough to fill an ocean that can cover the entire Earth’s planetary neighbour, concluded scientists who observed the recent seismic data of Mars.

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The claims were made based on data received from NASA’s robotic InSight Lander during a mission to help decipher the interior of Mars. This is good news, as it provides hope of probable life on the red planet. However, there is one problem.

The water discovered on Mars is located about 7.2 to 12.4 miles (11.5 to 20 km) below the Martian surface, which is at depths that are too far below the surface for us to access. Life can sustain at such depths, as researchers point out that conditions beneath are favourable for microbial life, but reaching there would be a herculean task, almost impossible some may say.

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"At these depths, the crust is warm enough for water to exist as a liquid. At more shallow depths, the water would be frozen as ice," said planetary scientist Vashan Wright of the University of California, San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography, lead author of the study.

The study was published on Monday (Aug 12) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

On our planet Earth, we are able to find microbial life deep underground where rocks are saturated with water, explains co-author Michael Manga of the University of California, Berkeley.

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How huge ocean of water was found on Mars?

India’s lunar mission Chandrayaan-2, which was launched in 2019, first gave the location of abundance of lunar water. Recent data by InSight indicated the presence of this reservoir of liquid water within igneous rocks, formed in the cooling and solidification of magma or lava in the Martian crust.

The InSight lander touched down in 2018 to study the deep interior of Mars, gathering data on the planet's various layers, from its liquid metal core to its mantle and its crust. The InSight mission ended in 2022.

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"The water exists within fractures. If the InSight location is representative and you extract all the water from the fractures in the mid-crust, we estimate that the water would fill a 1-2 km deep (0.6-1.2 miles) ocean on Mars globally," Wright said.

Challenges ahead

Water would be a vital resource if humankind ever is to place astronauts on the Martian surface or establish some sort of long-term settlement. We knew earlier that Mars harbours water in the form of ice in its polar regions and in its subsurface, but the discovery of water in underground water is huge. And the challenge is huge too. 

"Drilling to these depths is very challenging. Looking for places where geological activity expels this water, possibly the tectonically active Cerberus Fossae (a region in the northern hemisphere of Mars), is an alternative to looking for deep liquids," Manga said.

(With inputs from agencies)