New research based on seismic measurements from NASA’s Mars InSight lander suggests that there may be enough water hiding in the cracks of underground rocks beneath the surface of Mars to potentially form an ocean. After analyzing more than 1,300 marsquakes detected by the InSight lander before it shut down in 2022, researchers concluded that the seismic readings were most likely due to underground water.
Lead scientist Vashan Wright from the University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography explained that the water found in fractures 11.5km to 20km beneath the surface of Mars likely collected there billions of years ago when the planet had rivers, lakes, and possibly oceans, similar to Earth. The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, with Matthias Morzfeld and Michael Manga as co-authors.
InSight Lander, NASA’s first craft dedicated to studying Mars’s interior, was located at Elysium Planitia near the planet’s equator. Wright suggested that if this location is representative of the rest of Mars, the underground water could potentially fill a global ocean 1-2km deep. Confirming the presence of water and searching for signs of microbial life would require drills and other equipment.
This new research provides valuable insights into Mars’s past and its potential for hosting microbial life deep underground. With Mars believed to have lost most of its surface water over 3 billion years ago as its atmosphere thinned, understanding the presence of underground water offers new possibilities for further exploration and potential discoveries on the red planet.
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