‘Newsweek’ reports that the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), a collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Russian Roscosmos agency,has discovered "significant amounts" of water on Mars.
In a December 15, 2021 announcement, the ESA said that water was found hidden under the surface of Mars' Valles Marineris canyon system.
The area is reportedly ten times the length and five times the depth of the Grand Canyon.
"(The Fine Resolution Epithermal Neutron Detector neutron telescope) revealed an area with an unusually large amount of hydrogen in the colossal Valles Marineris canyon system ... assuming the hydrogen we see is bound into water molecules, as much as 40% of the near-surface material in this region appears to be water." Igor Mitrofanov of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, via 'Newsweek'.
According to the ESA, while water was previously discovered on Mars, most of it was found in the planet's frozen polar regions as ice.
The recent finding reportedly signifies that the planet may contain larger water deposits covered by dust.
"With TGO we can look down to one meter below this dusty layer and see what's really going on below Mars' surface—and, crucially, locate water-rich 'oases' that couldn't be detected with previous instruments." Igor Mitrofanov of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, via 'Newsweek'.
"Knowing more about how and where water exists on present-day Mars is essential to understand what happened to Mars' once-abundant water ... and helps our search for habitable environments, possible signs of past life, and organic materials from Mars' earliest days." Colin Wilson, ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter project scientist, via 'Newsweek'