Giant glaciers buried under the surface of Mars at much lower latitudes than any previously known ice are a potential source of drinking water for future astronauts.

The discovery, made using ground-penetrating radar on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, offers new possibilities in the search for life on the red planet.

“If there is life on Mars, this kind of ice would likely preserve ancient organisms and DNA,” researcher Jim Head, a planetary geoscientist at Brown University, told Wired.com. “Examining the water ice could give you a good sample to try to detect if there had been life there.”

— full article @ WIRED

vruz: they don’t mention this in the article but H2O is not only useful as drinking water. hydrogen and oxygen can be separated through electrolysis, hydrogen can be used as a fuel and oxygen as a renewable source for breathing air. whilst still distant, this is a major discovery, a huge step towards the colonisation of Mars.