Researchers have discovered what they believe to be a 12-mile stretch of salty liquid water on Mars underneath the polar ice cap of its southern hemisphere.
If confirmed — though there may not currently be life in the cold and salty area where the water is thought to be situated — scientists say this discovery could lead to a renewed search for life on another planet beneath the surface of the Red Planet.
The European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter used a radar instrument that detected signs of a layer of water in the subsurface of Mars that is estimated to be at least 3 feet deep.
“This really qualifies this as a body of water. A lake, not some kind of meltwater filling some space between rock and ice, as happens in certain glaciers on Earth,” Roberto Orosei, a professor at the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, told BBC News.
Dried-up lake beds, previously discovered by NASA’s Curiosity rover, revealed that water had been present and periodically flowing on Mars at one point. However, this is the first time a constant body of liquid water has been discovered on the planet.
“It’s probably not a very large lake,” Orosei told the outlet.
