Water can exist just below the surface of Mars

One study suggests that groundwater bags may be only a few dozen meters from the surface of Mars, adding to the hope of a successful conquest of the red planet.

Picture 1 of Water can exist just below the surface of Mars
Sand dunes stretch on a flat area on Mars. This area is near a giant trench. (Photo: National Geographic).

The surface of Mars is so cold that water can only exist in the form of ice. However, many scientists believe that the temperature below the surface is large enough for water to exist in liquid form thanks to the porous sediment that acts like an insulating layer.

The hypothesis of the existence of Martian groundwater bags came after scientists studied some of the largest grooves on the red planet. They stretch a few hundred kilometers in the Chryse region of the southern hemisphere, National Geographic said.

Each groove has a width of several hundred to several thousand times the largest rivers on earth. Many scientists believe that water from Mars underground came up to create those trenches. If their prediction is correct, groundwater bags used to be quite common in the Martian crust.

'If porous sediments, fine sediments, sand or alluvial soil form a layer a few tens of meters thick, the temperature below will cause the ice to melt or maintain the liquid state of the water ,' he said.

Rodriguez judged that the groundwater bags were quite shallow, so humans could exploit them in the future.

Jeffrey Kargel, a scientist at the University of Arizona in the US, said that if groundwater bags actually exist on Mars, one could liken them to the aquifers beneath the permafrost. Earth's northern hemisphere.

That means, to find water bags on Mars, people just look for dunes above the water-filled areas - like salt-rich soil or ice.

Because the water lies beneath the porous and soft sediments, not hard rock, drilling down will be relatively easy and inexpensive. This fact makes it easier to explore red planet in the future.

' Water is the basic material for humanity's ambition to conquer Mars. In addition, we can extract hydrogen gas from water and use it as fuel , 'Rodriguez said.

Surface water bags are also where microorganisms can survive and grow. Because some bacteria can survive in the earth on Earth, scientists believe that the same can happen on Mars.