00:00Recently, scientists have made an astounding discovery that can change the entire course
00:05of Mars exploration.
00:07Apparently, there are oceans of liquid water on the Red Planet, so the future looks bright.
00:14We could use this water to support future missions, and then even relocate to Mars since
00:18we wouldn't need to worry about where to get this precious liquid, right?
00:23Well, there's one big problem.
00:25These oceans of liquid water are in Mars, so deep inside that we aren't likely to
00:30get there.
00:31At least, that's what a new analysis of seismic data collected by the Mars Inside
00:36Lander claims.
00:37Huge reserves of liquid water seem to be the best explanation for some seismic quirks of
00:43the Red Planet.
00:44So all this precious water is out of our reach, but we need to find it to solve the puzzle
00:50of the aquatic history of our blushing, dusty neighbor.
00:53And the first thing we need to do is identify where the water is and how much of it the
00:59planet is hiding.
01:00Navigation has confirmed that the parachute has deployed and we are seeing significant
01:05deceleration.
01:06Now, our rovers are scurrying about on the surface of the Red Planet, gathering all the
01:11available data on the planet's surface geology.
01:15And it's getting increasingly obvious that Mars was once covered with water.
01:20Many factors, from Martian terrains to ancient dry lake beds and deltas, suggest that there
01:25was a time when the planet was quite soppy.
01:29These days, there's still some water on and right below the surface of Mars.
01:33But it's in the form of ice and nowhere near what Mars had in the ancient past.
01:38To understand how much of it could've been on the Red Planet billions of years ago, we
01:43must know where all this water went.
01:46There are two spots where the water could've gone – into space or toward the interior
01:52of Mars.
01:53Then, it could've been isolated as either liquid reservoirs or ice deposits.
01:58Currently, we don't have any way of measuring how much water once leaked away.
02:03But now, we finally can find out more about the gooey center of the Red Planet.
02:09All thanks to the Mars Insight Lander.
02:12It isn't operating anymore, but from November 2018 to December 2022, it was listening to
02:19the hums and rumbles and monitoring the activity below its feet.
02:26The thing is, acoustic waves generated by seismic activity deep inside the planet can
02:32change according to the composition and density of the material these waves are moving through.
02:38And scientists can get a lot of information analyzing the behavior of seismic waves.
02:44In this case, they used a model similar to those used to map underground oil fields and
02:49aquifers on our home planet.
02:51Then, with the help of this model, they analyzed the data gathered by Insight on Mars.
02:57They discovered that the best explanation could be that there was a layer of fractured
03:02rocks whose cracks were filled with water deep under the surface of the Red Planet.
03:07That layer could be at a depth of 7 to 12 miles.
03:11That's why it would be extremely tricky for future missions to get to it.
03:15And still, the new discovery could help us understand the Martian water cycle.
03:20Confirming the existence of a large reservoir of liquid water can help us sneak a peek at
03:25what the climate on Mars used to be or what it could be like one day.
03:32And if once, Mars had a lot of water, it could've been habitable in the ancient past
03:37and might become habitable in the future.
03:40Water is crucial for life as we know it, so underground water reservoirs on the Red Planet
03:46could already be habitable.
03:48Maybe, while we're talking, tiny microorganisms or even some tentacled creatures are living
03:54their lives in the comfort of their underground home.
03:57On Earth, super-deep mines do host life.
04:00And the bottom of the ocean, with its immense unbelievable pressures, isn't lifeless either.
04:06So far, we haven't found any evidence of life on Mars.
04:10But for now, it sounds like this place has the potential to sustain life.
04:16Insight data has shown that there isn't likely to be a lot of water ice in the upper
04:20crust of the planet, at least in the region around the lander.
04:25But if it turns out that there is a water-rich layer deep below the surface and stretching
04:30around the entire globe of the planet, then there would be enough water to fill ancient
04:35ocean beds and even more.
04:39Mars isn't the only place outside Earth where there is water or where we might one
04:43day find water.
04:45Take the good old Moon, for example.
04:47On Earth's natural satellite, water can be found all over the surface, but it's
04:52not the water you might be imagining.
04:54On the Moon, water remains mostly as ice, and it's distributed unevenly.
05:00For example, the poles of the Moon are the regions that never receive sunlight.
05:05This is the reason they're extremely cold.
05:07And it's no wonder there's a lot of ice there.
05:10The ice in these areas is often mixed with the lunar soil and hiding deep below the surface.
05:16Then there's Enceladus, the 6th largest moon of Saturn.
05:20In reality, it's not that large, just 314 miles across.
05:25In other words, this moon is small enough to fit inside Arizona.
05:29We should try that!
05:30Well, interestingly, when the Cassini space probe first arrived at Saturn, researchers
05:35were expecting Enceladus to be a frozen ball of ice.
05:39But what they saw was plumes of icy particles and water vapor erupting from geysers on the
05:45Moon's surface.
05:46It was clear that there was a massive ocean between the Moon's rocky core and its icy
05:50shell.
05:53Then there's Jupiter's moon, Europa.
05:56Astronomers think that this world is one of the most promising places in the Solar
06:00System when it comes to searching for new life forms.
06:03That's because Europa has a huge saltwater ocean as deep as 40 to 100 miles.
06:09And even though it's under a layer of ice that is likely to be 10 to 20 miles thick,
06:14it's still potentially habitable.
06:18Astronomers believe that plumes of water might erupt from cracks in the ice shell and release
06:22the contents of the Moon's ocean into space.
06:25The temperature, pressure, and chemistry are very different on Europa.
06:30And astronomers aren't sure yet how the ice behaves there.
06:33That's the main reason they haven't figured out yet how deep or large the water reservoirs
06:38on Europa are and how long they need to refreeze.
06:43But out of all the places where we could find water in the Universe, the most bizarre is
06:48probably open space.
06:51In 2011, two teams of astronomers discovered a cloud of water floating freely among stars.
06:57It was the largest and farthest reservoir of water ever detected.
07:02So this massive cloud of water vapor surrounds a black hole.
07:06But not just any black hole.
07:08This one's a quasar, located 12 billion light-years from Earth.
07:12The conditions around this quasar must be really special to create such an enormous
07:17amount of water.
07:18This cloud contains 140 trillion times the volume of all the water on Earth.
07:24That's enough to give every person on the planet a whole planet's worth of water 20,000
07:30times over.
07:31Sounds wild, doesn't it?
07:32But there's something even cooler.
07:35Astronomers think this water cloud formed just 1.6 billion years after the Universe
07:39began.
07:40This discovery is yet another sign that water has been around all over the Universe, even
07:46in its early days.
07:48But here's the kicker.
07:49Until they found this, scientists had never detected water vapor so far back in time.
07:55Sure, there's water in our Milky Way galaxy, but most of it's frozen solid in ice.
08:01This discovery really pushes the boundaries of what we know about water in the Universe.
08:07That's it for today, so hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like
08:12and share it with your friends.
08:13Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side!
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