An announcement by NASA scientists in March that they had detected strong signs of water ice near the surface of Mars may be confirmed later this week when more detailed data is released, according to unconfirmed reports by several news agencies.

New data will reportedly be detailed in the journal Science, which maintains strict embargoes on its information which SPACE.com and other news outlets are bound by.

However, an article in last week's online version of the Albuquerque Tribune hinted at the announcement. That was soon followed by speculative articles from several British journalists over the weekend and the Reuters news agency.

None of the stories involved confirmation from NASA officials or any of the scientists involved in the research. This Thursday, a handful of papers will appear in Science and NASA will hold a press conference to detail the findings, according to the various press reports.

A confirmation of water ice on Mars would not be unexpected.

"There's a lot of ice on Mars," University of Arizona researcher William Boynton boldly stated back in March, when initial findings of the Odyssey spacecraft were released. "We really have a whopping large signal."

That signal -- a detection of hydrogen, which is a component of water -- needed to be confirmed, Boynton and other scientists said in March. The water ice, they said then, appeared to be just a few feet below the surface, locked in the soil of the dusty planet near the southern pole but away from the permafrost. They also said then that they expected the northern hemisphere of Mars might harbor similar quantities of water ice.

Boynton is the principal investigator for the Gamma Ray Spectrometer suite of instruments, used to make the discovery. Another instrument, called a Neutron Spectrometer, is also used in searching for signs of water and other chemicals.

Biologists say liquid water is essential for life as we know it. But frozen water near the surface of Mars may be a remnant of past liquid oceans, which might have existed millions or billions of years ago when researchers believe Mars was warmer and may have harbored a thicker atmosphere.

Scientists already knew there was water locked up in the northern ice cap, along with carbon dioxide ice. But finding water ice away from the permanently frozen polar caps would greatly boost the chances that it might melt seasonally or at least periodically, or that pocket of underground water might exist and could therefore potentially support life.

For water to exist in underground pools, some internal heat source would be needed. Though Mars appears volcanically inactive to the eye, researchers say there could be magma inside the planet and it would be a source of heat that could melt ice.

Scientists have also said fossils could be locked up in the Martian soil. Dormant life might remain in the ice -- something researchers have found to occur on Earth.

Many leading researchers believe only by putting humans on Mars will they be able to answer these questions. NASA has been reluctant to commit to any sort of timetable for such a mission. But speculation of such a mission -- either by NASA or by Europeans -- now runs rampant.

As a result of the finding, "NASA may now commit itself to a manned landing within 20 years," according to a story on the BBC's web site. That claim was not attributed to any official and has not been verified. Other published reports carried similar unsubstantiated claims.

If NASA did commit to a timetable for putting humans on Mars, it would be a stark shift in policy. The agency has said that not enough is known about the hazards on Mars, including potentially lethal radiation, to make firm plans. Odyssey also caries an instrument designed to measure the radiation environment, but no results from that device have been announced.

Water on Mars, even the frozen variety, would make a crewed mission more practical by providing not just a source of drinking water but also a potential source of rocket fuel.

The BBC reported that the ice, if melted, would cover Mars in an ocean at least 1,640 feet (500 meters) deep.

Odyssey, a mission costing nearly $300 million, launched April 7, 2001. The spacecraft is 7.2 feet (2.2 meters) long, 5.6 feet (1.7 meters) tall and 8.5 feet (2.6 meters) wide. The orbiting craft will study Mars for at least three years from 249 miles (400 kilometers) above. It will map the planet in visible and infrared light in unprecedented detail, scientists say.