The Atlantic

New Evidence for a Hidden Lake on Mars

Scientists say they have found a large body of water just below the surface, raising questions about the potential for life.
Source: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona

On the surface, Mars is the picture of desolation. A barren land unchanged for hundreds of millions of years, motionless except for the scattering of powdery dust by a faint breeze, or the slow crawl of a rover.

But perhaps just beneath the Martian soil, the picture is very different.

New evidence suggests the presence of a lake one mile beneath the ice-coated surface of Mars’s south pole, according to published Wednesday in . Scientists say the lake stretches 20 kilometers, or about 12 miles, across, and is one meter, or more than 3 feet, in depth. The findings, if confirmed, would mark

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