Mars has many large ice lakes

The probe Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has discovered huge ice lakes beneath the layers of rocks and mountains on Mars. They may be remnants of ice seams that once covered the red planet.

These are the largest water bodies outside the poles of Mars. Most have a few tens of kilometers in diameter and a depth of about 800 meters. A lake with an area of ​​approximately 4,000 square kilometers, more than 3 times the city of Los Angeles in the United States. They can provide water or rocket fuel for manned spacecraft exploration on the red planet in the future.

Images of some computer-built Mars ice lakes based on radar data on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.(Photo: Reuters)

' If you build a base on Mars, you will want to place it near a large water source because you can do everything by water, ' said John Holt, geology expert at the University of Texas ( USA), speak.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is a versatile space probe of the US Aerospace Agency (NASA).It is designed to probe and explore Mars from orbit.This $ 720 million device was launched from Earth on August 12, 2005 and reached Mars orbit on March 10, 2006.

Ice lakes, dating back to 200 million years, can bury many pieces of genes from microbes that once appeared on Mars. In addition, the bubbles below can reveal the atmospheric structure of the red planet.

Previously scientists thought that ice lakes existed only in the north pole and the extreme years of Mars. Therefore, the existence of large glaciers at the latitudes of the red planet is a remarkable discovery. " They are remarkable evidence of an important process of climate change on Mars related to changes in the equator, " John said.

Scientists want to understand the changing process of water on Mars to answer the question: Does the red planet ever have microorganisms or some kind of life? Although Mars' surface is now dry and dusty, there is plenty of evidence that it has experienced wetness.

(Photo: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin)