Scientists have discovered signs of a hidden ocean of water on Mars beneath the planet’s surface.
It is noted that seismic wave recordings indicate that a layer of liquid water may be hidden at a depth of 5.4 to 8 km below the surface. Scientists estimate that the total volume of water under the planet’s surface could flood Mars, forming an ocean 520 to 780 meters deep.
The red planet once had a lot of water on its surface. It was in the period from about 4.1 to 3 billion years ago. The surface of Mars had valleys, river deltas, and layered sedimentary rocks.
Over time, Mars lost its own magnetic field, and solar radiation destroyed most of the atmosphere of the planet. The temperature on the surface dropped and liquid water partially evaporated into space, turned into ice in the subsurface and polar caps, or remained in hydrated minerals below the surface.
Meanwhile, previous studies have shown that the loss of water does not take into account the entire volume of water that was once present on the planet. For a long time, scientists have been trying to answer the question of where the rest of the water on Mars went.
A new study indicates that liquid water does exist on Mars deep below the surface. Scientists have analyzed seismic data from the NASA InSight lander, which landed on the Red Planet in 2018. They found that seismic waves in the interior of Mars, caused by asteroid impacts and seismic activity during 2021 and 2022, are likely to slow down at a depth of 5.4 to 8 km. According to scientists, this may be due to the presence of liquid water, hidden in porous rocks.
«This layer is most likely a highly porous rock filled with liquid water, like a saturated sponge. It’s like the Earth’s aquifers, where groundwater seeps into the pores of the rock», — the authors of the study explain, professor of Geophysics at the Australian National University Hrvoje Tkalcic and professor of Geophysics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Weijia Sun.
According to the researchers, this liquid water may correspond to a volume that was not accounted for in previous studies. It is likely that most of this ancient water could have seeped through porous surface rocks and remained below the surface.
Hrvoje Tkalčič notes that the volumes of potentially detected water are in line with the estimates of «missing» water in previous studies. Previous estimates also indicated that large volumes of water could be stored under the surface of Mars in the form of ice. A study conducted in 2024 indicated that liquid water could be stored in rocks at a depth of 11.2 to 21 km.
Scientists recognize that large-scale missions using seismometers and drilling rigs are needed to confirm the presence of water on Mars.
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