The aim of Elon Musk to transport people to Mars may suddenly be a little more challenging. A new research reveals that the NASA Mars InSight Lander found little to no evidence of water or water ice in the area 300 metres (almost 1,000 feet) below the lander.
“According to research main author and geophysicist Vashan Wright, "These results don't eliminate that there could be grains of ice or tiny balls of ice that are not glueing other minerals together.”
https://t.co/15ofU4l2jx @Scripps_Ocean— The SETI Institute (@SETIInstitute) August 11, 2022
A new analysis of seismic data from @NASAInSight has revealed a couple of surprises. The first surprise: the top 300 meters of the subsurface beneath the landing site near the Martian equator contains little or no ice. #Mars pic.twitter.com/wEBaCIH10c
Elysium Planitia is where InSight is situated. The mission landed there in 2018 to search for marsquakes, which are vibrations brought either by internal activity or meteorites striking the Martian surface.
InSight may be buried beneath sedimentary rock and lava flows, according to photographs from the surface, but the porosity and mineral composition of the subsurface are undetermined according to study models.
Some of those gaps are being filled in by InSight, and its most recent data indicates that "uncemented material" essentially fills in the area around the lander. That might imply that there isn't much water there, but more information is needed.
At one point in time, oceans of freshwater could have thrived on Mars. Numerous researchers hypothesised that a significant amount of the water ended up in the minerals that make up the subsurface cement.
"When water comes into contact with rocks, it forms a new mineral collection, such as clay, and ceases to be a liquid.” According to study co-author Michael Manga of the University of California Berkeley, it is a component of the mineral structure. “
Future missions may provide more details, but its unknown how representative the InSight results are of the Mars subsurface in general.
Cover Image: NASA