If you're anything like me, then you'll already be spending a considerable amount of your time wondering where you're going to live when robots take over and decide we're surplus to requirements. So, it's good news all 'round to learn that NASA has found 'clean water' beneath the surface of Mars.
Scientists already knew that Mars had some ice locked under the surface, but until now they didn't know how deep it went or how clean it is. Obviously, this is pretty important stuff, because how else will Elon Musk and I survive on there without water?
Thankfully, those clever buggers at NASA have been able to use a camera to observe what's going on below the surface, in ways that, as yet, Mars landers have been unable to.
NASA's HiRISE camera, on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been able to find a few spots of land which are 'laid bare by time and have a direct line of sight on Mars' subterranean layers, according to WIRED magazine.
Richard Zurek, chief scientist for the Mars Program Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said: "On Mars, when you see something bright, it usually means ice, but the albedo readings on these exposed sections show that this is very bright stuff.
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"And the spectrometer readings support that this is water ice and not ice-cemented soil, which would be much harder to convert into water as a resource."
A team led by USGS planetary geologist Colin Dundas, also found eight regions where erosion had revealed underlying-ice.
These sections, show depths as shallow of one metre going all the way up to 100 metres into Mars. And, although researchers haven't made any estimates on the amount of ice present, they have said it looks pretty pure.
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Despite all this, it's still too early to attempt to pack up your life and begin a new one on Mars.
As yet, the eight Martian sites that have been observed are all north of the equator where temperatures can drop pretty fucking low.
And, if you want to go and enjoy the warmer temperatures that Mars has to offer, then you'll have to be prepared to deal with the fact that the ice will be deeper underground. So, swings and roundabouts, really.
Source: WIRED
Featured Image Credit: NASATopics: World News, mars, Nasa, space