Mars may have a water table hidden underground

September 29th, 2009 SYDNEY - New reports indicate that the NASA Viking 2 probe, which landed on Mars in 1976, may have come within centimeters of finding water three decades before it was eventually found. According to a report in ABC News, the finding could result in scientists re-evaluating data collected by the spacecraft, which was sent to look for signs of life on the red planet.

September 29th, 2009 SYDNEY - About 850 new species inhabiting underground water, caves and micro-caverns have been discovered in semi-arid Australia. These invertebrates include various insects, small crustaceans, spiders, worms and many others.

September 25th, 2009 WASHINGTON - NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has revealed sub-surface water ice that may be 99 percent pure, halfway between the North Pole and the equator on the Red Planet. "We knew there was ice below the surface at high latitudes of Mars, but we find that it extends far closer to the equator than you would think, based on Mars' climate today," said Shane Byrne of the University of Arizona, a member of the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE, which runs the high-resolution camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

September 24th, 2009 Spacecraft spies frozen water in Martian cratersPASADENA, Calif. — A spacecraft orbiting Mars has spotted water ice in several impact craters midway between the north pole and equator — the first time ice so close to the surface has been discovered so far south on the red planet.

September 19th, 2009 LONDON - Recent laboratory studies have shown that Mars is not red due to the rocks being rusted by the water that once flooded the planet, but due to the ongoing grinding of surface rocks, which forms the red dust. These findings, which open up the debate about the history of water on Mars and whether it has ever been habitable, have been presented at the European Planetary Science Congress by Dr.

August 31st, 2009 PANAJI - India will undertake Mission Mars between 2013 to 2015, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief G. Madhavan Nair said here Monday.

August 29th, 2009 LONDON - A new analysis has suggested that a rock found on Mars in 1996, which was claimed by scientists to host life, has minerals which could have only been formed in a habitable environment. Researchers led by David McKay of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, caused a sensation 13 years ago when they proposed that a chunk of Mars rock found in Antarctica, called ALH 84001, contained possible signs of past life on the Red Planet, including complex carbon-based molecules and some microscopic objects shaped like bacteria.

August 9th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A team of scientists, using images from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on board NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, have reported direct evidence of lake shorelines in the Shalbatana Vallis in Mars. Scientists generally believe that warm, wet conditions existed on Mars until only about 3.7 billion years ago.

July 3rd, 2009 WASHINGTON - Parts of Mars resemble places on Earth, including its landscape, history of water, soil and even its weather, says a study. Mark Lemmon, professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, long involved with Mars missions, says last year's Phoenix Mars Lander mission keeps revealing secrets about the planet, answering some questions but raising other big ones.

July 3rd, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new research has determined that many characteristics of Mars are quite similar to planet Earth, including its landscape, history of water, soil and even its weather. The research, by Mark Lemmon, a professor of atmospheric sciences, Texas A and M University, US, points out that last year's Phoenix Mars Lander mission keeps revealing secrets about the planet, answering some questions but raising other big ones.

June 5th, 2009 Mars orbiter enters safe mode after disturbancePASADENA, Calif. — NASA says its powerful Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is in safe mode after being hit by a cosmic ray or solar particle.

May 21st, 2009 LONDON - A new study has suggested that a cold, wet Mars may have been just as hospitable to life as a warm one. According to a report in New Scientist, the study investigated what would happen to various mineral solutions on Mars.

March 31st, 2009 LONDON - The HiRISE camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has observed some small, freshly gouged craters in images taken in 2008, which in turn have exposed hidden subsurface ice on the Red Planet. According to a report in New Scientist, seen at five sites over a latitude range of 43 degrees to 56 degrees north, the excavations are typically 3 to 6 meters across and a third to two-thirds of a meter deep.

March 28th, 2009 LONDON - Scientists have reported the discovery of a methane-producing mineral on Mars. According to a report in Nature News, the evidence for the existence of the mineral, known as serpentine, was found by Bethany Ehlmann, a PhD student at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

March 25th, 2009 LONDON - NASA's Phoenix Lander has shown the presence of perchlorate salts in Martian soil, which can keep water liquid at temperatures of minus 70 degrees Celsius, leading scientists to suggest that briny pools may exist just below the surface of Mars. According to a report by BBC News, pockets of brine might form when soil interacted with ice.