There is “liquid water” under Mars, new evidence has suggested.
This is a major discovery in the search for evidence that Mars is “wetter” than it seems.
Scientists say the new findings represent the first time evidence of subsurface water on Mars has been found using non-radar data.
As such, it offers a further hint that the red planet may be habitable.
However, scientists cautioned that the discovery “does not necessarily mean that life exists on Mars.”
As it turns out, in the study, researchers used lasers on the spacecraft to identify small changes in the height of ice “caps” on Mars.
They then compared those patterns to a computer model that predicted how a body of water beneath those ice “caps” would change the surface — and found that they matched.
Scientists have already used radar to find clues that suggest there may be water under the ice. But these findings were criticized by some who suggested that the radar data could be explained in other ways.
And now the new findings are proof of their own that Mars actually has “liquid water” under its South Pole.
The work was led by the University of Cambridge and involved scientists from the University of Sheffield and the Open University.