NYU Abu Dhabi Scientists Discover Evidence of Water on Mars
- Publish date: Thursday، 13 November 2025 Reading time: 1 min read
New study suggests Mars may have been habitable for longer than thought, thanks to underground water traces discovered in Gale Crater.
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Researchers at NYU Abu Dhabi have uncovered evidence that water once flowed beneath the surface of Mars, hinting the planet could have supported life far longer than scientists previously believed. Their findings, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, focus on ancient sand dunes in Gale Crater, which appear to have hardened into rock after interacting with underground water billions of years ago.
How the Discovery Was Made
Led by Dimitra Atri, Principal Investigator at NYUAD’s Space Exploration Laboratory, and research assistant Vignesh Krishnamoorthy, the team analyzed data collected by NASA’s Curiosity rover. They found water from a nearby Martian mountain seeping through cracks, soaking the sand from below, and leaving behind minerals like gypsum — a substance also common in Earth’s deserts.
These minerals are particularly exciting because they can trap traces of organic material, making these subsurface spots ideal targets for future missions looking for signs of past life.
Learning From Earth to Explore Mars
To better understand the findings, the researchers compared Curiosity’s Martian data with rock formations in the UAE desert that formed under similar conditions. The study was supported by NYU Abu Dhabi Research Institute and conducted at the Centre for Astrophysics and Space Science, with collaboration from James Weston and Panče Naumov’s research group.