Scientists have previously established the existence of water on Mars in the form of ice at the poles and water vapor, and pointed to geological features that appear to have been carved by water ages ago.
"The results suggest that water was incorporated during the formation of Mars and that the planet was able to store water in its interior during the planet's differentiation, " Hauri said.
MSN: Scientists say parts of Mars interior are as wet as Earth's
Images taken by the orbiting NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft enabled scientists to detect changes in the walls of two craters in the southern hemisphere of Mars, apparently caused by the downhill flow of water in the past few years.
That could give scientists clues as to how, where and when the water flowed on the ancient surface of Mars.
Now scientists peering below the surface have uncovered the first evidence of underground channels apparently created by flooding a finding that's expected to further illuminate the role of water in Mars' history.
That said, over the past decade, there has been an enormous amount of evidence that water once flowed freely on the ancient surface of Mars.
"The role of liquid water on Mars is of great importance for its habitability and this study using Mars Express describes a very large zone where groundwater was present for a long time, " said Olivier Witasse, a project scientist with ESA's Mars Express.
MSN: New proof that water existed underground on ancient Mars
Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program, said the observations provided the strongest evidence to date that water still flowed occasionally on the surface of Mars.
It's often said that we know more about the surface of the Moon or even of Mars than we do about the two-thirds of our planet covered by water.
While the walls of the Inspiration Mars spacecraft will initially be lined with water-filled bags to guard against cosmic rays, their contents will be gradually replaced with er, byproduct that will be dehydrated through the bag (possibly using polyethylene) to reclaim and purify water for drinking.
This find is just one more piece of the puzzle about what Mars looked like hundreds of millions of years ago, when there was water on the surface.
Robotic explorers have found evidence of water, a key ingredient for life on Mars and on the moons of Jupiter.
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In order to have liquid water at the surface, the atmosphere of Mars had to be considerably thicker than it is today.
The overarching strategy of NASA's Mars Exploration Program has long been to follow the water, and Curiosity is no exception.
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The interior of Mars holds vast reservoirs of water, with some spots apparently as wet as Earth's innards, scientists say.
MSN: Scientists say parts of Mars interior are as wet as Earth's
The new results, however, add to astronomers' growing understanding of water on Mars, and could lead to clues of whether life exists, or ever existed, on the Red Planet.
MSN: New proof that water existed underground on ancient Mars
Last June, the scientific community was stunned by the announcement that there were signs of liquid water on modern Mars after all.
Lasers beamed from landing craft could, he says, power rovers in sunless areas of the moon or Mars, such as craters where water might be found.
Mars rover Curiosity has found the remnants of an ancient streambed on Mars, providing still more evidence that water once flowed freely there.
Tethered to the seafloor 130 miles southeast of New Orleans in 2, 900 feet of water, Mars was built to withstand 71-foot waves and 140mph winds.
However, as Michael Meyer suggests, the discovery does raise many questions, including whether the source and abundance of water could serve as a resource in future missions to explore Mars.
"It's quite likely that this moon will now join the ranks of Mars and Jupiter's moon Europa where you might have liquid water - and the biologists could start getting interested in this being a place were life might possibly arise, " enthused Dr Torrence Johnson, a Cassini scientist from Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
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Nasa's Curiosity rover has only been on the surface of Mars seven weeks but it has already turned up evidence of past flowing water on the planet.
Yet, some of the most promising locations to search for ancient life on Mars are places where water may have been in contact with volcanic rocks, ancient hydrothermal systems where conditions may have been conducive to life.
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For example, scientists investigate the hyper-dry environments found in Antarctica (but there is still a lot of water, compared with Mars) or Death Valley (dry enough, but much hotter than Mars).
In this way, things like rocket engines, satellites, Mars-exploring rovers, space suits, and water purifiers on the International Space Station become part of everyday life on Earth.
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Spectroscopic images of those rocks taken with the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) showed that they were composed of minerals that only form in the presence of water.
It seems as though NASA or other space agencies "rediscover" water on Mars every few years, so maybe this latest announcement will be regarded as just more of the same.
Much of it resulted from volcanoes blasting out gases like carbon dioxide and water vapour, which allowed ice (also a mineral) to form near the poles of Earth, and possibly on Mars too.
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