Originally published April 5 2005
Discovery of frozen Martian sea increases chances of finding life on the Red Planet
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft, currently orbiting the red planet, has taken images, which show that frozen bodies of water lies just meters below the Martian surface near the planet's equator. The frozen area is about 500 miles across and averages 147 feet deep. Scientists believe that the frozen sea indicates the presence of subsurface water as recently as just a few million years ago.
Since NASA's twin robot geologists Opportunity and Spirit landed on Mars in January 2004, a steady trickle of scientific analysis has confirmed that water once soaked the red planet, raising the possibility of life there.Images recently taken by the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft, which is orbiting Mars, show a frozen body of water, about the size of Earth's North Sea, beneath the surface of Mars (see enlarged image)."I believe this makes the possibility of the discovery of life on Mars much closer than was previously thought," said John Murray, a research scientist at the Open University in Milton Keynes in England.Scientists now say that Mars has been shaped by flowing water, lava, and ice in the recent geological age.The sea formed within the last few million years, as volcanic eruptions or tectonic activity caused the area to flood.A separate study shows that explosive eruptions about 350 million years ago created depressions on the flank of the Martian volcano Hecates Tholus."It indicates that Mars is still a geologically active planet, and geological activity is generally agreed to be important to the development and continuance of life, which requires such a source of energy," Murray said.The discoveries are reported this week in the science journal Nature.The theory is that water erupted less than five million years ago from the Cerberus Fossae; deep cracks on the Martian surface.If life can develop in these subsurface oceans, as many scientists believe, this frozen sea may be the ideal place to look not just for fossils of past life, but for the actual frozen organisms themselves, Murray said."We now need to land there and drill into these deposits, which hopefully will happen in 2011, when both the European Space Agency and NASA have plans for landers," he said.
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