Co-lead author Professor Elena Pettinelli said: "The presence of sub-glacial lakes could have important consequences for astrobiology - and the presence of habitable niches on Mars." Co-lead author Dr Sebastian Lauro, also of Roma Tre, said: "We borrowed a methodology commonly used in radar sounder investigations of sub-glacial lakes in Antarctica, Canada and Greenland. The interpretation that best reconciles all the available evidence is the high intensity reflections are coming from extended pools of liquid water." In other words, the best Earth-based analogues for the Martian lakes described in Nature Astronomy are inhabited. "The biggest unanswered question from our earlier paper was: is this the only evidence of sub-ice liquid water?

Source: Daily Mirror September 28, 2020 15:00 UTC