ESA's Mars Express orbiter discovers ice water deposits at the Red Planet's equator

The potential discovery suggests that Mars once looked very different from how it appears today and could once have sustained life.

Transcript

00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:03 It's a testament to how much water there would

00:23 have been on Mars in the past.

00:25 To amass piles of water ice several kilometers thick,

00:31 that's a vast amount of water.

00:33 So we've seen the evidence of lots

00:36 of water on the Martian surface in other places.

00:38 [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:42 These Medusa fossil formation look a lot like the polar caps

00:51 when we look at them.

00:53 So this is really surprising.

00:54 We don't expect to see a polar ice cap at the equator.

00:59 You know, it's as ludicrous on Mars as it would be on Earth.

01:03 But that's what the data are telling us,

01:05 saying it does look like that.

01:06 [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:10 [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:13 [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:17 [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:20 [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:24 [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:27 [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:31 [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:35 [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:39 [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:42 (upbeat music)