It may be known as a rocky, red planet but evidence is mounting that salty water exists at the base of polar deposits on Mars.
University of Southern Queensland’s Professor Graziella Caprarelli is part of an international team investigating bright reflection signals below the Martian surface, first spotted in data acquired between 2010 and 2019 by the radar sounder MARSIS on board Mars Express.
The primarily Italian team proposed that the reflections pointed to a patchwork of salty lakes, publishing their research in Science in 2018 and in Nature Astronomy in 2021. Recently a new collaboration between the Italian team and U.S.-based researchers provided new evidence further corroborating this interpretation.
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