3 Underground Lakes Found on Mars Increasing Possibility of Life

Italian scientists claim discovery of multiple underground lakes in the south polar region of Mars using radar data from European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Express spacecraft.

(Source: The Conversation taken October 2, 2020)

In a journal the said team published on Nature Astronomy last September 28, 2020, evidence taken from 2010 through 2019 shows 134 radar images of what seemed to be several subglacial liquid bodies in varying sizes.

These claims serve as a confirmation of what happened two years ago, when Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS), one of the eight Mars Express instruments, revealed findings of a large lake on the same region, sitting roughly 1.5 km deep under the ice of south polar cap.

MARSIS sent out radio waves to Mars’ planetary surface where signals may be absorbed, scattered or reflected back to the radar. The high reflectivity seen from the radar images suggest that there are large bodies of water trapped beneath its surface.

At present, the team located at least three smaller underground lakes, about 19 miles across the large lake discovered in 2018.

The Martian terrain in the area reached up to -1100 C and with its low atmospheric pressure, scientists believed that water in its liquid form can’t exist. However, this latest discovery exhibits the possibility that there is a much larger network of liquid underground lakes that exist trapped among glaciers when Mars’ was warmer and wetter like Earth.

Scientists are hopeful that there may be a lot of water on Mars, and therefore, present a possibility of life, suggesting that some areas on the red planet that have escaped its freezing surface may be habitable and house microbial life.