Vital ingredient? New hope for life on Mars as study finds water may exist within crust

Vast amounts of water could be trapped deep within the crust of Mars, scientists have said, raising fresh questions about the possibility of life on the red planet.

- Nicola Davis

Scientists say that more than 3bn years ago, Mars not only had lakes and rivers but oceans on its surface. However, as the planet lost its atmosphere, these bodies disappeared. All that is visible today is permafrostice at the planet's poles.

While it is thought some of the water was lost to space, research has suggested that is not the full story, and that water could have been incorporated into minerals, buried as ice, or even exist in liquid form deep within the planet's crust.

Now scientists say their calculations suggest vast quantities of liquid water could be found trapped within rocks about 11.5-20km (7-12.5 miles) below the Martian surface.

"Our liquid water estimate is more than the water volumes proposed to have filled possible ancient Martian oceans," said Dr Vashan Wright, a co-author of the study from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego.