Scientists have finally found liquid water on Mars, and it's a huge deal! Buried under layers of ice near the planet’s south pole, this hidden lake gives hope that life might exist, or at least once existed, on the red planet. The discovery was made using radar data from a Mars orbiter, showing a lake that’s about 12 miles wide. It’s not exactly like the lakes on Earth—it’s super salty, which is why it stays liquid in Mars' freezing temperatures. Still, finding water is a game-changer because water is key to life. Who knows what other secrets Mars might be hiding? Credit: ESCAPADE Mission: By James Rattray/Rocket Lab USA/NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14635/ Perseverance Rover's Descent: By NASA/JPL-Caltech, https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/31250/ Mars Evolution: By NASA/MAVEN/Lunar and Planetary Institute, https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13016/ Mars Climate Transition: By NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11025/ Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai: By NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio, https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4635/ GMM-3 Mars Gravity Map: By NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio, https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4436/ Moon Essentials: Libration in Latitude: By NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio, https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/5199/ Moon Essentials: Seasons: By NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio, https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/5229/ Ocean Worlds: The Search for Life: By NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13693/ Active Galaxies: By NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10698/ Animation is created by Bright Side. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/ Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightside Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en Stock materials (photos, footages and other): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00Recently, scientists have made an astounding discovery that can change the entire course
00:05of Mars exploration.
00:07Apparently, there are oceans of liquid water on the Red Planet, so the future looks bright.
00:14We could use this water to support future missions, and then even relocate to Mars since
00:18we wouldn't need to worry about where to get this precious liquid, right?
00:23Well, there's one big problem.
00:25These oceans of liquid water are in Mars, so deep inside that we aren't likely to
00:30get there.
00:31At least, that's what a new analysis of seismic data collected by the Mars Inside
00:36Lander claims.
00:37Huge reserves of liquid water seem to be the best explanation for some seismic quirks of
00:43the Red Planet.
00:44So all this precious water is out of our reach, but we need to find it to solve the puzzle
00:50of the aquatic history of our blushing, dusty neighbor.
00:53And the first thing we need to do is identify where the water is and how much of it the
00:59planet is hiding.
01:00Navigation has confirmed that the parachute has deployed and we are seeing significant
01:05deceleration.
01:06Now, our rovers are scurrying about on the surface of the Red Planet, gathering all the
01:11available data on the planet's surface geology.
01:15And it's getting increasingly obvious that Mars was once covered with water.
01:20Many factors, from Martian terrains to ancient dry lake beds and deltas, suggest that there
01:25was a time when the planet was quite soppy.
01:29These days, there's still some water on and right below the surface of Mars.
01:33But it's in the form of ice and nowhere near what Mars had in the ancient past.
01:38To understand how much of it could've been on the Red Planet billions of years ago, we
01:43must know where all this water went.
01:46There are two spots where the water could've gone – into space or toward the interior
01:52of Mars.
01:53Then, it could've been isolated as either liquid reservoirs or ice deposits.
01:58Currently, we don't have any way of measuring how much water once leaked away.
02:03But now, we finally can find out more about the gooey center of the Red Planet.
02:09All thanks to the Mars Insight Lander.
02:12It isn't operating anymore, but from November 2018 to December 2022, it was listening to
02:19the hums and rumbles and monitoring the activity below its feet.
02:26The thing is, acoustic waves generated by seismic activity deep inside the planet can
02:32change according to the composition and density of the material these waves are moving through.
02:38And scientists can get a lot of information analyzing the behavior of seismic waves.
02:44In this case, they used a model similar to those used to map underground oil fields and
02:49aquifers on our home planet.
02:51Then, with the help of this model, they analyzed the data gathered by Insight on Mars.
02:57They discovered that the best explanation could be that there was a layer of fractured
03:02rocks whose cracks were filled with water deep under the surface of the Red Planet.
03:07That layer could be at a depth of 7 to 12 miles.
03:11That's why it would be extremely tricky for future missions to get to it.
03:15And still, the new discovery could help us understand the Martian water cycle.
03:20Confirming the existence of a large reservoir of liquid water can help us sneak a peek at
03:25what the climate on Mars used to be or what it could be like one day.
03:32And if once, Mars had a lot of water, it could've been habitable in the ancient past
03:37and might become habitable in the future.
03:40Water is crucial for life as we know it, so underground water reservoirs on the Red Planet
03:46could already be habitable.
03:48Maybe, while we're talking, tiny microorganisms or even some tentacled creatures are living
03:54their lives in the comfort of their underground home.
03:57On Earth, super-deep mines do host life.
04:00And the bottom of the ocean, with its immense unbelievable pressures, isn't lifeless either.
04:06So far, we haven't found any evidence of life on Mars.
04:10But for now, it sounds like this place has the potential to sustain life.
04:16Insight data has shown that there isn't likely to be a lot of water ice in the upper
04:20crust of the planet, at least in the region around the lander.
04:25But if it turns out that there is a water-rich layer deep below the surface and stretching
04:30around the entire globe of the planet, then there would be enough water to fill ancient
04:35ocean beds and even more.
04:39Mars isn't the only place outside Earth where there is water or where we might one
04:43day find water.
04:45Take the good old Moon, for example.
04:47On Earth's natural satellite, water can be found all over the surface, but it's
04:52not the water you might be imagining.
04:54On the Moon, water remains mostly as ice, and it's distributed unevenly.
05:00For example, the poles of the Moon are the regions that never receive sunlight.
05:05This is the reason they're extremely cold.
05:07And it's no wonder there's a lot of ice there.
05:10The ice in these areas is often mixed with the lunar soil and hiding deep below the surface.
05:16Then there's Enceladus, the 6th largest moon of Saturn.
05:20In reality, it's not that large, just 314 miles across.
05:25In other words, this moon is small enough to fit inside Arizona.
05:29We should try that!
05:30Well, interestingly, when the Cassini space probe first arrived at Saturn, researchers
05:35were expecting Enceladus to be a frozen ball of ice.
05:39But what they saw was plumes of icy particles and water vapor erupting from geysers on the
05:45Moon's surface.
05:46It was clear that there was a massive ocean between the Moon's rocky core and its icy
05:50shell.
05:53Then there's Jupiter's moon, Europa.
05:56Astronomers think that this world is one of the most promising places in the Solar
06:00System when it comes to searching for new life forms.
06:03That's because Europa has a huge saltwater ocean as deep as 40 to 100 miles.
06:09And even though it's under a layer of ice that is likely to be 10 to 20 miles thick,
06:14it's still potentially habitable.
06:18Astronomers believe that plumes of water might erupt from cracks in the ice shell and release
06:22the contents of the Moon's ocean into space.
06:25The temperature, pressure, and chemistry are very different on Europa.
06:30And astronomers aren't sure yet how the ice behaves there.
06:33That's the main reason they haven't figured out yet how deep or large the water reservoirs
06:38on Europa are and how long they need to refreeze.
06:43But out of all the places where we could find water in the Universe, the most bizarre is
06:48probably open space.
06:51In 2011, two teams of astronomers discovered a cloud of water floating freely among stars.
06:57It was the largest and farthest reservoir of water ever detected.
07:02So this massive cloud of water vapor surrounds a black hole.
07:06But not just any black hole.
07:08This one's a quasar, located 12 billion light-years from Earth.
07:12The conditions around this quasar must be really special to create such an enormous
07:17amount of water.
07:18This cloud contains 140 trillion times the volume of all the water on Earth.
07:24That's enough to give every person on the planet a whole planet's worth of water 20,000
07:30times over.
07:31Sounds wild, doesn't it?
07:32But there's something even cooler.
07:35Astronomers think this water cloud formed just 1.6 billion years after the Universe
07:39began.
07:40This discovery is yet another sign that water has been around all over the Universe, even
07:46in its early days.
07:48But here's the kicker.
07:49Until they found this, scientists had never detected water vapor so far back in time.
07:55Sure, there's water in our Milky Way galaxy, but most of it's frozen solid in ice.
08:01This discovery really pushes the boundaries of what we know about water in the Universe.
08:07That's it for today, so hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like
08:12and share it with your friends.
08:13Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side!