Hey! There’s ice on Mars!

Just over a year ago the Great Beyond noted the frequency of stories telling us that water existed on Mars. Well, we now have another story saying the same thing. This time, observations from HiRISE, the high resolution camera on board NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have shown ice below the surface, revealed after meteorites have walloped into the planet’s surface.

The ice was spotted when it was first uncovered, and monitored for 200 days. Just as was expected, the ice faded away and turned to vapour.

So ok, maybe I’m a bit cynical about being bored hearing about ice on Mars. This one does seem to push our understanding a bit further because this ice is much closer to the equator than would have been expected.

They also found that the ice was purer than expected, only about one percent of it was dirt. This is important because pure ice forms differently to mucky ice, and now gives Mars scientists some more data to work with the try and understand the geology of Mars, and the reasons for ice and water being there below the surface.

The work, by Shane Byrne from the University of Arizona and his colleagues was published in Science. As always, ice on Mars is big news and has been picked up a’plenty (LA times, CSM, Ottawa Citizen which, incidentally finds the news shocking).

It seems this has been a good couple of weeks for NASA and quests for water in non-Earthly bodies.

Image: NASA