Evidence detected of lake beneath the surface of Mars

A lake of liquid water has been detected by radar beneath the southern polar ice cap of Mars, according to a new study by Italian researchers from the Italian Space Agency, published Wednesday in the journal Science.

Evidence was gathered by the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding instrument, also known as MARSIS, on the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft.

Those pulses reflected 29 sets of radar samples that created a map of drastic change in signal almost a mile below the surface. It stretched about 12.5 miles across and looked very similar to lakes that are found beneath Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets on Earth. The radar reflected the feature's brightness, signaling that it's water.

Evidence detected of lake beneath the surface of Mars

Get out your [space] jet skis everyone...

Mars has water....AGAIN..

Anyhow, when are we going there to put boots on the ground???

I can’t believe this is not headlining ATS...

Too bad politicians gutted nasa for a [soon-to-be] failed car salesman...

Reminder: NASA put men on the moon in 1969...repeat 1969

We should already be on Mars but, alas, the Werner Von Braun era is over...

This is an astounding piece of news and if we are to have a space agency then let’s get to this lake, dam it and sell condos...

Come on people, admit it...you want to [space] water ski [underground]

-Chris

Exciting news. Unfortinatly they don't know what kind of liquid it realy is.

But salts like magnesium, calcium and sodium already found on Mars could help the water to form a brine, which would lower the melting point to allow the lake to remain liquid.

Doesn't sound to hospitable to life but if it's actual h20 it could mean that mars bases are a real possibility.

At least if it's h20 we could set up some mining around it.

For all we know mars is hiding riches in minerals just below the service.

a reply to: scraedtosleep

Heck, any kind of water, h30 or otherwise could be utilized...

It could be frozen methane or a simple vein of light, porous [dry] rock...

But if it’s any kind of water, let’s get a rover on its way with a digger and prove it...

-Chris

Posted this in the other thread thought i'd add it here.


Radar Evidence of Subglacial Liquid Water on Mars

Abstract

The presence of liquid water at the base of the martian polar caps has long been suspected but not observed. We surveyed the Planum Australe region using the MARSIS (Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding) instrument, a low-frequency radar on the Mars Express spacecraft. Radar profiles collected between May 2012 and December 2015 contain evidence of liquid water trapped below the ice of the South Polar Layered Deposits. Anomalously bright subsurface reflections are evident within a well-defined, 20-kilometer-wide zone centered at 193°E, 81°S, which is surrounded by much less reflective areas. Quantitative analysis of the radar signals shows that this bright feature has high relative dielectric permittivity (>15), matching that of water-bearing materials. We interpret this feature as a stable body of liquid water on Mars.

Yes , but our guys ( US ) cannot see it.

"We don't see the same reflector with SHARAD, not even when we recently summed together [thousands] of observations to create CATSCAN-like 3-D views of both polar caps," Nathaniel Putzig, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter SHARAD deputy team leader and senior scientist at the Planetary Science I

OP article

a reply to: Christosterone

How do they know its water?

a reply to: Christosterone

how can they be sure that any clear liquid they find on Mars or anywhere else is not acid????

what evidence do they have which suggests the observed liquid is water?

Sounds like they are building a long term off world narrative to me.