March: Researchers discover a lake with liquid water

booth: 17:47 | Reading time: 4 minutes

Z For the first time, researchers discovered large amounts of liquid water on Mars. It is located in a 20-kilometer subterranean lake, about 1.5 kilometers below the south pole of the red planet. Italian scientists around Roberto Orosei of the National Institute of Astrophysics of Bologna found this water reservoir using radar measurements made by the European Mars Express probe from an orbit around Mars.

Radar signatures indicate a kind of glacial lake as they are under the Antarctic ice. There too, four kilometers under the frozen ice had found liquid water by radar measurement. The researchers named this deposit on Lake Vostok

The fact that there is essentially water on Mars has been known for some time. The Martian atmosphere contains traces of water vapor and, at the poles of the neighboring planet, there are thick ice caps. And on the "Phoenix" Martian, tiny droplets of water condensed on its surface during the night.

However, researchers have never found on Mars a greater amount of liquid water. In this regard, the discovery now published in the renowned scientific journal "Science" is quite a sensation. But how do researchers know that deep water under the Martian surface is actually liquid? The reflected reflected radar waves, which are reflected exactly from this interface between solid and liquid water in a characteristic way.

The researchers estimate that the underground lake on Mars has a temperature of about minus 68 degrees Celsius. But how can water be liquid in such cold weather? Here are two factors come into play. On the one hand, large amounts of salts can be dissolved in the water, which lowers the freezing point of the water. On the surface of Mars, among others, sodium, magnesium and calcium salts could be detected. It is not unlikely that they are in high concentration in the lake below the South Pole.

But this does not matter leave no water behind liquid at minus 68 degrees Celsius. It is also due to the overlying ice layer under very high pressure, which can further lower the freezing point. Researchers predict that the salt lake under the ice can remain liquid up to a temperature of minus 74 degrees Celsius

It is completely inaccurate at this time if this water tank may or may not contain forms of life. Statements on this subject would be pure speculation. Nothing can be deduced from the radar measurements. Samples of this water should be taken and badyzed. Basically, however, there are life forms that can survive at such low temperatures.

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As on Mars at an earlier stage of development There is a good chance that life on the red planet existed before, of which today there may be only "remnants" in ecological niches. However, due to the high salinity, this lake will likely not contain life.

Neither is it known how deep Mars is. Researchers can only say that the salt lake must be at least ten centimeters deep – otherwise the radar measurement with boundary layer reflection would not have been able to work that way. However, with an extension of about 20 kilometers, it also results in a large amount of water.

Up to now, researchers have only studied a small part of the South Pole region. They may find more lakes under the surface of Mars.

The exploration of the planet Mars remains exciting. In particular the polar regions with their frozen water reserves would be ideal places for a possible Mars station. At some point, it may be possible to exploit the Marssee now found. If there was already life on Mars, there could be at least biomolecules there, if there was no creature there. It would be almost a proof that life does not come only from planet Earth.