Water ice glaciers spotted on Mars

An artist's concept of how glaciers on Mars might look.

(Credit: NASA/JPL)

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has detected what NASA scientists believe are huge glaciers of water ice lying beneath a layer of rocky debris.

The finding is significant because it helps scientists better understand a feature of the Martian surface that has puzzled them for decades. In the 1970s, the Viking orbiters sent back images that showed what have been dubbed "aprons," or large, gently sloping deposits of debris situated at the base of tall geographic formations like cliffs. Several theories for what created these aprons have been posed over the years. This research indicates that what's just beneath that debris is of much greater interest.

To investigate the planet's surface, the MRO spacecraft uses a radar instrument, donated for the project by the Italian Space Agency, that can penetrate the Martian ground. The instrument detected radio waves bouncing off a layer of material beneath the surface that were consistent with what is found in areas covered with water ice glaciers.

One of the things that makes the glaciers so interesting is their location. They're in the middle latitudes, far from the planet's polar caps where other signs of water ice have been discovered. The glaciers observed in this study are in the southern hemisphere, but similar features have been spotted in the same latitude bands in the northern hemisphere. That led researchers to believe that, however the glaciers got there, they're the result of a climate-based phenomenon.

And they're big, too. The glaciers reach for dozens of miles. One is three times larger than the city of Los Angeles and is up to a half-mile thick.

"Altogether, these glaciers almost certainly represent the largest reservoir of water ice on Mars that is not in the polar caps," lead author John W. Holt, of the University of Texas at Austin, said in a report.

The findings will be reported in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

[philryan]

Wow! So a Martian colony isn't totally out of the question. Roll on Blue Mars!

[jenguevin]

I don't know that we're quite ready to colonize, but the same scientist I quoted in the article did say that, more than just being interesting from an academic perspective, these glaciers are big news because they are a possible source of water for future Mars exploration projects.

[simplelifer]

This is really an exciting news!
Two planets in one solar system with one possible had, and the other has had, life (or lives) before... So, does this mean life, as we know it that supported by water, is more abundant in the universe than what was originally thought of?
This is a good news!

[jenguevin]

I didn't talk about this aspect in my story, but you can bet NASA will dig up some of these glaciers in the future to find out if there is any evidence of life at some time in Mars' history.

Very exciting stuff.

[jessiethe3rd]

TERRAFORMING TIME! Let's colonize that sucker!

[dmh1976]

Has anyone seen Total Recall ????? ;-)

[Beatnyama]

Heyyy, wait people. Wait one moment!!

IS THAT WATER DRINKABLE?

Just my .02

[knowles2]

Any water it drinkable with the right purification process. Unless it radioactive. But hopefully a mission will be arrange to go to these glaciers and take samples certainly before any man mission and analyze it to come up with ways to make the water drinkable.

[freemarket--2008]

In any case, you could use solar concentrators to melt the ice, solar cells to split the water into O2 and H which can run fuel cells for power at night. The final product should be pure water for life support.