Jakarta –
The European Space Agency (ESA) discovered that there is water covering Mars. This water can turn into a vast ocean if it melts to a depth of 1.5 to 2.7 meters.
ESA discovered this on the Mars Express mission, a space vehicle that has been operating for 20 years around the Red Planet. The new discovery represents the largest amount of water ice detected there so far.
“Interestingly, the radar signal matches what we expect from ice sheets and is similar to the signals we see from Mars’ polar layers, which we know are very rich in ice,” said lead researcher Thomas Watters of the Smithsonian Institution in an ESA statement as quoted from detikInet.
Its presence near the equator makes it easily accessible for future manned missions. Even so, the water is buried so deep that it will be difficult to access it.
The newly discovered deposits are thick, stretching 3.7 km underground. Above it was covered by a layer of hardened ash and dry dust hundreds of meters thick. The ice has also been contaminated by dust.
About 15 years ago, Mars Express detected deposits beneath a geological formation called the Medusae Fossae Formation (MFF). However, scientists are not yet sure what is buried beneath it. MFF is believed to have formed over the last 3 billion years from lava flows covered by volcanic ash. Well, from Mars Express’ latest MARSIS subsurface radar observations, MFF is not just ordinary dust.
The existence of this ice may be caused by the axis of Mars. Throughout the history of the Red Planet, the tilt of the planet’s polar axis has been known to vary very chaotically. Currently Mars’ poles are tilted to the ecliptic by 25 degrees (compared to Earth’s tilt of 23 degrees), but in the past the tilt could range from a shallow angle of 10 degrees to an extreme angle of 60 degrees. This was reported by Space, Monday (22/1/2024).
Watch the video “Planet Mars Rotates Faster, Scientists Are Confused”
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2024-01-23 00:00:24
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