7/25/2018 -R. Orosei (Nat'l. Inst. Astrophysics, Bologna) announced that the Mars Orbiter has detected a wide lake (20 km wide) of liquid water hidden beneath 1.5 km of solid ice near the Red Planet’s south pole. Three years of Radar Subsurface Soundings observations from the ESA Mars Express spacecraft indicated that the reflecting signals was liquid water. Similar lakes beneath Antarctica and Greenland have been discovered in the same way (2013).
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C pure water would freeze, thus martian salts in the water might keep this lake liquid and likely muddy. However, Martian temps make it unlikely that even extremophile bacteria might be there. At a minimum of 10 cm depth for the Radar scans suggest it would contain some 10 billion liters of liquid water. If confirmed this will change or view of present-day habitability of Mars.
possible liquid water lake on mars
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