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Liquid Water Lake Detected Underneath Polar Ice on Mars

posted by takyon on Thursday July 26 2018, @12:01AM   Printer-friendly
from the wash-your-ass-on-Mars dept.

fritsd writes:

The Mars Express mission orbiting Mars (not the Beagle 2 part that crash-landed) has discovered liquid water in the south polar region of Mars.

The orbiter has been patiently circling Mars since 2003, using its ground-penetrating radar to map the surface up to a certain depth.

And now the ESA scientists have found a bright spot that they think is an underground lake.

Also at BBC, Science Magazine, Sky & Telescope, Ars Technica, and National Geographic.

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  • (Score: 2) by fritsd on Thursday July 26 2018, @03:02PM

    by fritsd (4586) on Thursday July 26 2018, @03:02PM (#713140) Journal

    The article said that the radar echo came from 1.5 km deep. That sounds humanly possible to reach. There are goldmines in South Africa that are more than 3 km deep.

    If the "liquid" is a brine of concentrated perchlorate, it becomes a bit difficult to believe what could survive and thrive in that bleach.

    Here's another article about perchlorate in the surface soil [theguardian.com] (is hyping it a bit with its "covered in toxic chemicals". OK it's toxic but not very)

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