Major Discovery Makes Colonizing Mars A Lot More Feasible

With the amount of obvious similarities between Earth and the Red Planet, one of which (and probably the most important for us, mere mortals) being that Mars has roughly the same amount of day time as Earth, now there are even better news that might push the idea of colonizing our neighbor that much more feasible.

Oh, haven’t you heard the news? There is ice on Mars, and ice means clean water!

While scientists have made a living studying the vastness that is above our heads, they made this theory that once Mars had massive snowfalls that would build up on the planet’s surface. They had very good reason to speculate that where there is snow, there is bound to be water. Now, their theory has been confirmed - Mars does have water and it is huge news for humankind’s plans of colonizing it in the future.

Thanks to information from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, NASA has found a total of eight sites across the Red Planet that contain substantial ice pockets, just feet under the Mars’ rocky surface.

They are estimated to be less than a million years old, which in the geological circles is quite young for this type of thing. All that clean water removes a major barrier scientists have been working on since the subject of colonizing Mars was first discussed. And with Elon Musk predicting the SpaceX program could be landing humans on Mars in as little as seven years, knowing reachable, usable water is there brings the prospect of life on Mars one step closer to reality.