Large Reservoir of Water Ice Found on Mars
Published on 16 Mar 2007 at 4:51 am.
1 Comment.
Filed under Astrobiology, Exploration, Mars, Research.
The Mars Express probe launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) has been using ground penetrating radar to look for subsurface water. The instrument MARSIS, which stands for Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding instrument has succeeded in detecting an enormous reservoir of water ice frozen under the south polar ice cap. The figure below shows the thickness of the ice cap (with purple being the thinnest regions). The water reservoir is frozen under carbon dioxide (dry) ice. However, it is estimated that if the water reservoir were to melt, it would be sufficient to cover the surface of Mars to a depth of about 36 feet. The dark circle represents the polar regions at latitudes greater than 87 degree beyond which the probe is unable to image.
The frozen water lies deep below the surface, but is approximately 90% pure water ice mixed with dust particles. The area of the ice deposit is about equal to the area of Europe and it is approximately 3.7 km thick. The thickness is measured by detecting ground penetrating radar beam that are reflected from the different layers of material.
It is also known that the north polar cap also acts as a water ice reservoir, and the team will use the ground penetrating radar there as well to further characterize the thickness of the ice.
The radar study has been published by Jeffrey Plaut, a project scientist for NASA’s Mars Odyssey mission
Kevin Knuth
Albany NY
joe on 16 Mar 2007 at 6:04 pm: 1
“Follow the Water” is the theme for Mars exploration - it’s underground and there is a lot of it which means the distribution of conditions needed for life to survive on Mars is that less constrained by water.