Since I was a young child Mars held a special fascination for me. It was so close and yet so faraway. I have never doubted that it once had advanced life and still has remnants of that life now. I am a dedicated member of the Mars Society,Norcal Mars Society National Space Society, Planetary Society, And the SETI Institute. I am a supporter of Explore Mars, Inc. I'm a great admirer of Elon Musk and SpaceX. I have a strong feeling that Space X will send a human to Mars first.
Tuesday, January 23, 2024
Water Ice Buries At Mars Equator Over 2 Miles Thick
Major News: Water Ice Buried at Mars’ Equator is Over 2 Miles Thick
January 21, 2024
ESA, Human Settlement, Humans To Mars, Mars, Mars Exploration, Science, Water ice
News & Announcements
Large deposits of subsurface water ice two miles thick have been found near the Martian equator by the European Space Agency – ESA orbiter. This discovery could improve future prospects for human Mars settlement.
Water Ice Buried at Mars’ Equator is Over 2 Miles Thick
By Keith Cooper, Space.com, 01.19.24
A European Space Agency (ESA) probe has found enough water to cover Mars in an ocean between 4.9 and 8.9 feet (1.5 and 2.7 meters) deep, buried in the form of dusty ice beneath the planet’s equator.
The finding was made by ESA’s Mars Express mission, a veteran spacecraft that has been engaged in science operations around Mars for 20 years now. While it’s not the first time that evidence for ice has been found near the Red Planet’s equator, this new discovery is by far the largest amount of water ice detected there so far and appears to match previous discoveries of frozen water on Mars.
“Excitingly, the radar signals match what we expect to see from layered ice and are similar to the signals we see from Mars’ polar caps, which we know to be very ice rich,” said lead researcher Thomas Watters of the Smithsonian Institution in the United States in an ESA statement.
The deposits are thick, extended 3.7km (2.3) miles underground, and topped by a crust of hardened ash and dry dust hundreds of meters thick. The ice is not a pure block but is heavily contaminated by dust. While its presence near the equator is a location more easily accessible to future crewed missions, being buried so deep means that accessing the water-ice would be difficult.
To read the full article on Space.com, please click here.
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