Mars Has Liquid Water Close to Surface, Study Hints
Pools of water may exist just below Mars’s surface, according to new research that suggests humans may one day tap into the liquid bounty.
Although the surface of Mars is too frigid for liquid water to be stable, pockets of water underground could be kept warm enough by an insulating blanket of porous sediment, an international team writes in the November issue of the journal Icarus.
(Related: "Liquid Water Recently Seen on Mars?")
The new theory is based on studies of Mars's biggest outflow channels, which stretch for hundreds of kilometers across the southern circum-Chryse region.
The ancient channels were likely carved by gushing torrents of water, each hundreds to thousands of times larger than the Mississippi River. These massive rivers are believed to have erupted from underground sources, suggesting that shallow groundwater reservoirs were once
