Putative microbial life on Mars would encounter a severe scarcity of liquid water due to the prevailing freezing and hyperarid climate conditions. Interestingly, hygroscopic salts were discovered on Mars that enable water absorption from the atmosphere and lower the freezing point, potentially allowing the temporary occurrence of liquid briny water [1]. However, these brines contain high...
Liquid water, an essential compound for life on Earth, is not stable on the Martian surface, but the presence of hygroscopic salts like chlorates and perchlorates in the regolith could enable the formation of, at least temporarily, stable liquid brines[1]. In the near-subsurface, a thin regolith layer could prevent water sublimation, thus extending the lifetime of the brine [2]. Regolith...
Today, liquid water is not thermodynamically stable at the surface of Mars due to the low temperature and pressure conditions. However, liquid groundwater may still exist in the Martian subsurface [1, 2].
In this study, we use fully dynamical 3D thermal evolution models [3] to calculate the depth at which favorable conditions for liquid water are present, assuming that a global subsurface...
