Test your space knowledge with a quiz about water on Mars

NASA recently found evidence of liquid water on Mars. Where did they find the water?

A. Deep below a south pole ice cap

B. On the surface in Gale Crater

C. In a subsurface cave

D. In the form of rain clouds

A. Deep below a south pole ice cap. In 2018, researchers using ice-penetrating radar on the Mars Express Orbiter found evidence for a massive liquid water lake underneath 1.5 kilometers of ice.

True or false: It snows on Mars.

A. True

B. False

C. It's complicated

A. True. At night, water or carbon dioxide can freeze and fall to the ground as snow.

NASA selected Jezero Crater as the landing site for its newest rover, Perseverance. What water-formed geological feature lies in the crater?

A. Riverbed

B. The entrance to a cave

C. River delta

D. Stalagmites

C. River delta. Jezero Crater is home to an ancient river delta, which deposited sediment into an ancient lake and could hold evidence of past life on Mars — if life ever evolved there.

Mars’s northern ice cap is mostly made of water, but its southern ice cap is mainly composed of which frozen molecule?

A. Methane

B. Carbon dioxide

C. Sulfur dioxide

D. Amino acids

B. Carbon dioxide. In winter, Mars becomes cold enough that carbon dioxide condenses out of the atmosphere as snow or frost, covering a region of the south pole.

True or False: Scientists have found liquid water flowing on Mars’s surface.

A. True

B. False

C. It’s complicated

C. It’s complicated. In 2015, scientists announced the discovery of a feature called a “recurring slope lineae” that looked like water flowing down a slope. However, in subsequent years, some scientists have suggested alternative explanations.