Is there liquid water on Mars

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Content > Miscellany > Water On Mars

Once upon a time someone mistranslated the word "canali" from Italian (meaning "channel") to the word "canal" in English and the idea that Mars was a world full of life with canals of flowing water and sophisticated Martian civilisation was born.

Many fantasies were built on this idea until Science poured cold water on the idea by pointing out that the atmospheric pressure on the Mars surface was so low that any liquid water would simply boil away and be lost into space.
At this point the fantasies became stories of a dry world with nothing but dust devils.

The problem comes down to life on Mars. Finding something alive Mars would mean that life on Earth isn’t a coincidence, it increases the probability that life exists elsewhere. Generally most intelligent people believe there is life elsewhere – there are certainly enough planets, as of the date of writing dozens of planets have been found. Unfortunately simply believing something doesn’t make it true.

Water is considered the key because life as we know it needs water, even the extreme animals, bugs and microorganisms that live in insanely unpleasant environments still need water. So water is our guiding principle, if we can find water we might find life.

Rivers not canals
Mars does not have canals, but as the various probes have come and gone, photographing the entirety of the Martian terrain in detail, one thing has become abundantly clear: Mars definitely did have water at one time, and a lot of it.
There are river deltas, water-eroded sedimentary rocks – and floods.

Once there was water flowing on the surface of Mars, the atmosphere must have been sufficiently thick to allow water to exist in liquid form on the surface. If there were rivers then there were clouds and there was rain. There might have been some form of life.

Martian ice caps
The existence of the Martian ice caps has been known for a long time, though it was never clear whether they were water-ice or frozen carbon dioxide. What was known was that these ice caps retreated in summer and expanded in winter.

Ultimately it was discovered that they were frozen CO2, but underneath that layer of CO2, which evaporates completely in the Summer, is a frozen layer of water. Not only that but beneath the Martian surface are huge natural reservoirs of frozen water, and there’s a lot of it. See this article.

Last updated July 6, 2007 6:24 PM