Liquid water is found on Mars, which may indicate life on the planet

It has long been speculated about the existence or not of liquid water in Mars. However, today (25), a team of scientists from Italian Space Agency finally came to a conclusion: there is liquid water in Planet.

Water had already manifested in other physical states

With the information that there is, in fact, water in the States gaseous and solid on Mars, it was to be expected that somewhere on the planet we would find such a resource in the liquid state also. Therefore, a underground lake, which had been discovered via a space probe launched in 2003, has since been inspected.

“There were years of debate and investigations, we spent years debating whether it was even possible. But now we can say: we discovered water on Mars.”, Said Roberto Orosei, astronomer, researcher at the University of Bologna and lead author of this discovery – which was published in the journal Science.

And it so happens that, in this underground lake, the scientists found a permanent reservoir of liquid water. In practice, this means that the chances of having life in Mars grew up a lot.

“Without water, no life form as we know it could exist. That is why there is great interest in detecting liquid water on other planets.”, Explain Anja Diez, researcher at the Norwegian Polar Institute.

According to the Orosei, the lake, which is located at the South Pole of Mars, has about 20 km in diameter and is located 1,5 km below an ice sheet. Still, the astronomer claims that it is impossible to determine the total volume of water present in it:

“Compared to terrestrial lakes, it is a small lake 20 kilometers in diameter. But we can't accurately know the depth of the lake because the water attenuates the radar signal. What we do know is that it (the depth) measures at least one meter – or the radar would not be able to reveal its existence.”, clarifies Roberto Orosei.

How was it possible to detect liquid water on Mars

As mentioned by Orosei, the scientists used a radar to come to the conclusion that there is, in fact, water on Mars. And the equipment in question has the names of Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface (Advanced Mars Radar for Subsurfaces, in free translation) and Ionosphere Sounding (nicknamed Marsis). The latter, which serves to measure the propagation of radio waves, sends all data to the Mars express, the space probe we've already talked about.

And the curious thing is: as the year on Mars lasts much longer than the Earth year, the data to be analyzed corresponded to the period between May 2012 and december 2015. In this way, it was possible to cover all seasons of the year and, thus, check the behavior of the water during the temperature variations between the Summer and winter, for example.

“We believe the water is liquid and at a temperature below the freezing point of pure water, about minus 10 degrees”, says the author of the discovery, explaining that the water found in Mars It has high concentrations of magnesium, calcium and sodium. That is, it is a highly saline water and reaching temperatures lower than pure water without necessarily freezing.

Although this kind of discovery makes us imagine that never-before-seen beings will appear out of nowhere, it is still an environment that doesn't make it easy for the emergence of life - at least not as the EARTH. However, this does not mean that smaller organisms are not there, waiting to be discovered:

“We know that under similar conditions, in lakes in Antarctica, there are some multicellular organisms that survive”, Explain Roberto Orosei, indicating that we can expect anything from now on.

But what about you, are you curious to know if there is life in Mars? Share your thoughts down below in the comments!

Source: BBC Brazil.

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