Mars Contains Surprising Amount of Water, Study Reveals

NASA's Curiosity rover has uncovered a surprising amount of water hidden in the dirt on Mars, according to a study published in the journal Science.

By heating a soil sample in its onboard oven, the probe discovered that the fine dust contains roughly 2 percent water by weight.

"For me, that was a big 'wow' moment," lead author of the study Laurie Leshin told SPACE.com.

The discovery, the researcher said, could potentially solve the question of where any future missions to the Red Planet would come from.

"If you think about a cubic foot of this dirt and you just heat it a little bit -- a few hundred degrees -- you'll actually get off about two pints of water -- like two water bottles you'd take to the gym," Leshin, dean of the School of Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, told Science Magazine.

"And this dirt on Mars is interesting because it seems to be about the same everywhere you go. If you are a human explorer, this is really good news because you can quite easily extract water from almost anywhere."

However, the news isn't all good in terms of future space travel, Leshin warns.

Further analysis by Curiosity also revealed the presence of a compound with chlorine and oxygen, which, the researchers say, is likely chlorate or perchlorate.

"If the water was the good news for the astronauts, this is the bad news," she said, according to the BBC. "Perchlorate actually interferes with thyroid function, so it could be a problem if humans were to ingest some of the fine dust on Mars. It's just something we need to know about now so we can plan for it later."

The study is one of five papers published in the journal Science regarding the Martian surface based on the work conducted in the rover's first 100 days on the planet.