Mars has once again stumped humans with yet another fascinating discovery. Latest research shows that the red planet is hiding giant slabs of ice at its equator. This ice runs several kilometres deep and if melted, is enough to cover the entire surface of Mars. The resulting ocean will likely be 1.5 to 2.7 meters (4.9 to 8.9 feet) deep.
The discovery of these slabs of ice has been made at the Medusae Fossae Formation region on the Martian equator, first discovered in 2007. However, at the time scientists didn’t know what exactly was it composed of.
The latest discovery once again proves that life probably once existed on the red planet. Earlier, evidence has been found that rivers once flowed on Mars. But this is the first time that such a huge amount of water has been found on the Martian equator.
“We’ve explored the Medusae Fossae Formation again using newer data from Mars Express’s MARSIS radar and found the deposits to be even thicker than we thought: up to 3.7 kilometers (2.3 miles) thick,” geologist Thomas Watters of the Smithsonian Institution said.
“Excitingly, the radar signals match what we’d expect to see from layered ice, and are similar to the signals we see from Mars’s polar caps, which we know to be very ice-rich.”
Scientists say that the buried water is equal to the amount of water found in the Red Sea on Earth.
What is the Medusae Fossae Formation?
In 2007, scientists first noticed that something was buried deep in this region of the Martian equator. This area was named the Medusae Fossae Formation. Whatever this collection comprised, extended for around 5,000 kilometers along the equator.
Watters and his team couldn’t figure out what was beneath the equator. They debated that it could be anything – from dust to volcanic ash, or something from Mars’ past, or perhaps even water. Whatever it was, it was huge and several kilometers high.
How did they conclude that it was water ice on Mars?
Scientists say that if it was buried in dust, they would expect it to have compacted under its own weight by now. However, that hasn’t happened.
“Given how deep it is, if the MFF was simply a giant pile of dust, we’d expect it to become compacted under its own weight,” physicist Andrea Cicchetti of the National Institute for Astrophysics in Italy said.
This is why they concluded that it is probably something more dense, something like ice.
“This would create something far denser than what we actually see with MARSIS. And when we modeled how different ice-free materials would behave, nothing reproduced the properties of the MFF – we need ice.”
While evidence is strong that water once flourished on Mars, scientists are still trying to understand what could have happened to all the water. The latest discovery might be able to offer some clues.
The article originally appeared on WION.