The Odds of Finding Water on Mars

Water exists on Mars, but almost all of it sits frozen at the poles—far from where anyone would actually want to land. Universe Today reports that two new studies from the Planetary Science Institute have transformed how researchers think about finding subsurface ice in the mid-latitudes. Rather than simply checking whether the data are consistent with buried water, the researchers calculated specific odds: for any given patch of Martian ground in those regions, there's a sixty-four percent chance of finding ice beneath the surface.

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