2024-03-12 18:10:09
The study updates the 2007 observations with more recent radar data also recorded by the Mars Express probe. The signals are similar to those from the polar caps on Mars, which contain water ice. But scientists weren’t sure. Medusae Fossae until you realize its depth.
it can not be another thing
Map of Medusae Fossae water ice deposits on Mars
The deposits are covered by a layer of dust and ash several hundred meters thick. If everything were a huge pile of dust, it would compact under its own weight. But the material underneath is not as dense.
“When we modeled how different materials other than ice would behave, nothing reproduced the properties of the Medusae Fossae formation: we needed ice,” explains Andrea Cicchetti of Italy’s National Institute of Astrophysics.
There is so much ice, in fact, that if it melted it would cover the entire planet with a blanket at least five feet deep. Or put another way, there is enough water to fill the Red Sea on Earth.
It is impossible that all that water could have formed with the current climate of Mars. We know that before being an arid world, the planet had oceans and rivers. Now we must solve a new mystery: when and how the enormous water reserve under Medusae Fossae was formed.