BY TYLER DURDEN
FRIDAY, MAR 20, 2026 – 04:00 PM
Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
NASA’s Curiosity Rover has discovered evidence on Mars that suggests underground water once existed in a region of the planet later than scientists first believed, the agency reported March 15.
Curiosity component images combined into a self-portrait at drilling target ‘Windjana.’ NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS“Our findings show that Mars didn’t simply go from wet to dry,” said Dimitra Atri, group leader of the Mars Research Group at New York University. “Even after its lakes and rivers disappeared, small amounts of water continued to move underground, creating protected environments that could have supported microscopic life.”
Curiosity, an SUV-size vehicle weighing about one ton, spent six months investigating an area filled with geological formations known as boxwork, which are low-crisscrossing ridges about three to six feet tall.
The features look like giant spiderweb patters when viewed from space, according to NASA.
“Seeing boxwork this far up the mountain suggests the groundwater table had to be pretty high,” said Tina Seeger of Rice University in Houston, one of the mission scientists. “And that means the water needed for sustaining life could have lasted much longer than we thought looking from orbit.”
Scientists say they think the boxwork formed when groundwater traveled through cracks in the bedrock, leaving behind minerals.
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