Mystery of Mars' vast underground lakes could have been solved by expert scientists

dailystar.co.uk:

scientists believe they have found an explanation for the mystery around why there are 'vast water lakes' found on Mars' ice-covered south pole.Research in 2018 led to the theory that bright reflections under the polar cap could be water, but now scientists claim that it was just an illusion.Scientists at the University of Texas at Austin reckon that it could have been volcanic rock buried under the ice that was seen in the 2018 investigation.More investigations revealed that the reflections match those of volcanic plains found all across the red planet.Researchers have said that this solves the mystery as temperature and pressure on the Red Planet makes stable liquid water unlikely on its surface.Cyril Grima, lead author and a planetary scientist at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG), said: "For water to be sustained this close to the surface, you need both a very salty environment and a strong, locally generated heat source, but that doesn't match what we know of this region."In their analysis, the south polar illusion dissolved when scientists added an imaginary global ice sheet across a radar map of Mars.The team found that the imaginary ice showed how the planet would appear when looked at through a mile of ice.This allowed them to compare features across the entire planet with those under the polar cap.Cyril noticed bright reflections as seen in the south pole, but scattered across the planet, with many matching the location of volcanic plains.Iron-rich lava flows on Earth can leave behind rocks that produce similar reflections.Despite there being no liquid water on Mars, there is plenty of ice on the planet.Isaac Smith, a Mars geophysicist at York University, believes the bright radar.