Recent research from the University of California has uncovered compelling evidence of underground liquid water reservoirs beneath the Martian surface. These findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, add to the previously known frozen water at the planet’s poles.

Scientists reached this conclusion by analyzing data collected by NASA’s InSight lander, which operated on Mars from 2018 to 2022. The lander’s seismometer recorded four years of seismic activity deep within the planet. By measuring the speed at which these seismic waves traveled, researchers were able to infer the types of materials they passed through. This technique, commonly used on Earth for finding groundwater, oil, and gas, makes the findings highly reliable.

However, for those envisioning a Mars colony like Elon Musk, there’s a catch: these water reservoirs lie between 10 and 20 kilometers below the surface. Extracting water from such depths would require heavy equipment and complex engineering, making it a formidable challenge.

Whether this newly discovered water is potable remains unknown and will require further exploration. To definitively answer this question, scientists would need to extract a sample and analyze it.