News Planetary Science

Mars (probably) has a lake of liquid water

A lake beneath the Red Planet’s southern ice sheets may be the best place to find life

Mars' southern polar ice sheets

WHAT LIES BENEATH  There may be a 20-kilometer-wide lake hidden under Mars’ southern polar ice sheets, shown here in images from NASA’s Mars Orbiter Camera on the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft.

Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio Mars Orbiter Camera data/NASA

By Lisa Grossman

This article is only available to Science News subscribers.

Subscribers, enter your e-mail address to access our archives.

Not a subscriber?

Science News is a nonprofit.

Support us by subscribing now.

More Stories from Science News on Planetary Science

  1. NASA's orbiter VERITAS
    Planetary Science

    NASA will be heading back to Venus for the first time in decades

    By Lisa Grossman
  2. image of Jupiter
    Planetary Science

    Laser experiments suggest helium rain falls on Jupiter

    By Emily Conover
  3. image of Martian surface from China’s Zhurong rover
    Space

    China’s first Mars rover has landed and is sending its first pictures

    By Lisa Grossman
  4. planet Saturn
    Astronomy

    Saturn has a fuzzy core, spread over more than half the planet’s diameter

    By Ken Croswell
  5. Ingenuity helicopter on Mars
    Planetary Science

    NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter’s mission with Perseverance has been extended

    By Lisa Grossman
  6. a person in a clean suit maneuvers a gold-colored cube
    Planetary Science

    NASA’s Perseverance rover split CO2 to make breathable air on Mars

    By Lisa Grossman
  7. image of Ingenuity flight next to image of ingenuity landed
    Planetary Science

    NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter made history by flying on Mars

    By Lisa Grossman
  8. clouds of Jupiter
    Planetary Science

    How the laws of physics constrain the size of alien raindrops

    By Lisa Grossman

From the Nature Index

Paid Content