Discovering a 130-meter-thick ice shelf hidden under the surface of Mars

A group of American scientists found evidence of ice shelves 130 meters thick under them.

Researchers using spacecraft flying around the orbiting Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) of the US Aeronautics Agency (NASA) discovered eight areas of thick ice below the surface of Mars were exposed in Slope erosion , according to the Washington Post. The steep slopes are as high as the Big Ben Tower in London, England. Beneath the red dust of the slope is a 130-meter-thick ice shelf, which makes the scene look dark blue.

Analyzing the slopes revealing thick ice hidden beneath the surface, can become an attractive target for future expeditions, as well as a valuable resource for astronauts settling on Mars. .

"We found a new way to study the ice and hope that will attract the interest of those who love learning about Mars ice and its history , " said Colin Dundas, Chinese member. Center for Space Geology Science at the US Geological Survey in Arizona, the report's author published in Science magazine yesterday, said.

The dark blue of the ice hidden under the surface of the red planet.(Photo: NASA).

Not a new discovery. In 2001, the Mars Odyssey spacecraft flew to the red planet and began tracking the chemical characteristics of the ice. The gamma-ray spectrometer found on the ship found hydrogen, indicating that Mars had a huge amount of ice. About 1/3 of the Martian surface contains ice in shallow form. But remote detection elements such as hydrogen cannot reflect ice thickness and composition.

newer surface mapping more detailed. Dundas and his colleagues used photos of the ship to identify the ice exposed in small craters, glaciers and ice shelves."High-resolution data significantly enhances our understanding of the terrain types related to ice , " Dundas said.

Matt Balme, planetary scientist at the Open University, England, who did not participate in the study, commented that the key finding is the blue color in the color pictures , showing that the underlying layer is different in terms of structure. with red dust. The capacity of ice shelves is a combination of very low water and gravel. "If the conclusion in the study is correct, they are considering something almost pure ice , " Balme concluded.

Slopes exist along the middle latitude of the planet, eliminating the possibility of glaciers moving from the polar regions. The authors of the study hypothesize that these ice shelves form when heavy snow covers Mars. Balme also thinks that snow can create ice for a few thousand years.

"We consider the possibility of salt fog on the surface but the signs of ice exist throughout the summer," Dundas said. The hidden ice is exposed after the structures become less stable and expand. These cliffs form through sublimation , during which the exposed ice immediately turns into steam.

According to Balme, these slopes have unusually steep slopes, which look like glaciers of glaciers on Earth. The proximity of the ice shelf to the surface makes them accessible to adventurous robots."The sub-surface ice may contain valuable Martian climate records similar to Greenland and Antarctic ice cores , " Susan Conway, planetary scientist at the University of Nantes, France, who did not participate in the study. save, guess.