MARSIS discovers 20 km wide underground lake on Mars

An underground lake has been detected on Mars, the first of its kind, thus raising hopes of finding more water- and possibly even life- on the red planet.

As per reports put forward by Italian researchers in the US journal Science, the lake is about 20 km long, located under a layer of Martian ice on the planet's southern pole ice cap. It is the largest water source discovered on the red planet.

The discovery was made using Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding, popularly known as MARSIS, a radar instrument on European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter.

The discovery is a breakthrough for scientists as they have always searched for water in the Martian soil with ambiguous findings. The planet, now a cold and barren land, used to be warm and wet once. Scientists believe that the planet was home to plenty of water and lakes at least 3.6 billion years ago.

(Featured Image – CNBC)