NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has found abundant water beneath the plains on Mars.
The amount of water found could be compared to the volume found in the Great Lakes, according to Aviation Week Network.
Scientists studied the northern latitudes using the orbiter's ground-penetrating Shallow Radar (SHARAD) instrument.
The data collected from 600 overhead passes using the on-board radar instrument were analyzed to reveal widespread deposits.
As researchers analyzed the data, they found deposits with a composition of 50 percent to 85 percent water ice. The analysis revealed that the deposits were combined with dust and other particles that were rocky. The thickness was about 260 feet to nearly 560 feet.
Cassie Stuurman of the Institute for Geophysics at the University of Texas, Austin, said "This deposit probably formed as snowfall accumulating into an ice sheet mixed with dust during a period in Mars history when the planet's axis was more tilted than it is today."
She has published a report in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
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