In 2015, NASA unveiled one of the Solar System's greatest mysteries: there is (or at least has) water and salt on the surface of Mars. Now how big would this aquatic mass be? According to new research, the Red Planet would have a really large volume of water!

The study was coordinated by Professor Wei Luo of the University of Northern Illinois (USA) and published by Natura Communications. According to Luo, Mars once had 686 quadrillion cubic meters of water, 10 times more than scientists had supposed. For comparative purposes, the earth is currently twice as large (1, 390 quadrillion cubic meters).

This huge amount of water is thought to explain the existence of places like Valles Marineris, the largest canyon in the Solar System: because the planet's temperature is so high, it probably has evaporated and precipitated in the rain many times, in an even faster process than happens on earth. Also to compare, the Grand Canyon, the largest on our planet, is 10 times smaller than Valles Marineris.

Professor Wei Luo poses before his research results

Another curious fact about canyons and valleys is that they are estimated to be 3 billion years old, which is very close to scientists' estimate of when Mars ceased to have a magnetic field and had all its water evaporated.

Although this new theory proposes a gigantic ocean on Mars, caution is still needed: there is no proof that it actually existed in the dimensions Luo imagined. The models we have on Earth show that the planet would not be capable of such a large volume of water, but aren't they outdated? Just the time to prove it ...

Chart shows Mars today and in the possible times of the megaocean

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