A cache of water has been found just a few feet beneath the surface of Mars.
The largest canyon in the solar system has been discovered by the European Space Agency's ExoMars mission. 40 percent of the region's surface could be water ice, according to the researchers.
The data from the TGO's Fine-Resolution Epithermal Neutron Detector (FREND) instrument found high levels of hydrogen at a site called Candor Chaos, a Netherlands-size region located at the heart of Valle. Evidence of water on Mars could be a clue that the planet was once home to life, or that it is not.
The research, which was done as part of a shared operation between the European Space Agency and the Russian space agency, is set to be published in the March 22nd edition of the journal.
Astrobiologists are holding out hope for life on Mars.
"We found a central part of Valles Marineris to be packed full of water, far more water than we expected," Malakhov said in a statement. "This is similar to Earth's permafrost regions, where water ice permanently persists under dry soil because of the constant low temperatures."
As much as 40 percent of the near- surface material in this region appears to be water if the hydrogen and oxygen are bound together.
The Valles Marineris canyon is a huge crack in the Martian surface that has been smoothed out by erosion from wind and possibly water. The canyon is 10 times longer and five times deeper than Arizona's Grand Canyon. The canyon would stretch across the United States from New York to California, according to NASA.
The largest canyon in the solar system is called Valles Marineris. Candor Chasma is located to the north. The image is from the DLR/FU Berlin.
The TGO's FREND instrument is used to detect the presence of water on the Red Planet. The team can calculate the amount of water on a surface by looking at the number of neutrons it produces when the soil is dry. This method allows the TGO to detect water below the surface.
In the past, scientists have only been able to find small amounts of water ice on the surface of Mars. The ability to find water on the Red Planet has increased since the TGO was able to penetrate to the upper subsurface.
"With TGO, we can look down to one metres below this dusty layer and see what's really going on below Mars' surface, and locate water-rich 'oases' that couldn't be detected with previous instruments," he said.
More observations are needed before researchers can identify what type of water they have discovered. Malakhov said that the water appears to be water, and that it is more likely to be ice.
The discovery has identified a large, easily-explorable water source that could be explored by future rovers.
Colin Wilson said that knowing more about how and where water exists on present-day Mars is essential to understand what happened to Mars' once-abundant water.
Live Science published the original article.
