Does Mars have liquid water

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Biblical floods: water on Mars

With the amazingly detailed images being created by the probes in orbit it is becoming clear that even after years of being a dry and dusty planet, Mars is subject to floods of water of biblical proportions.

Examining the surface of Mars shows craters that have been eroded by floods (or possibly had deposits laid down around them – it doesn’t matter, it’s still done by water). The physics of how this happens is still a mystery which is what makes it fun.

There have been catastrophic break-out floods on Earth but it’s not hard to understand how water might accumulate in a lake created by a natural dam and then have that dam break.

Standing water cannot exist on Mars but there are massive natural reservoirs of frozen water under the surface. Clearly, somehow, these reservoirs become liquid and break out. In the process they instantly start to (a) sublimate – turn directly into water vapour, and (b) become ice which increases the torrent’s erosive power by a huge amount.

These floods are very infrequent (millions of years between) and would be relatively short-lived but in that short time they wreak havoc on the surrounding landscape – there are some incredibly channels that have been gouged by these events. See this article

Liquid water on Mars
Having stated clearly all the reasons why it’s impossible to have free running water on the surface of Mars we do know that there are huge reservoirs of it locked beneath the surface. There is actually no reason to suppose that this water is all frozen.

Jupiter’s satellite Europa is a huge ball of ice, but evidence received from the Galileo probe in early 2007 indicates that there is probably liquid water 4.7 miles beneath the frozen surface. To remain liquid the energy has to be put in and it is the tidal gravity effects from its colossal parent planet, Jupiter, that keeps things warm.
Mars doesn’t have any tidal gravity effects keeping it warm (its moons, Phobos and Deimos are far too small), but it is a planet not a ball of ice and it was hot once – having the biggest volcano in the solar system is proof of that. One possibility is that Martian water is highly acidic, giving it a lower freezing point and that it’s under pressure which helps to keep the water liquid at low temperatures. See this article about water on Europa.

Last updated July 16, 2007 8:00 AM