phys.org is reporting that researchers working with radar data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) [flash required] have determined that belts of glaciers away from the poles are primarily composed of water ice.
What is more, researchers from the Neils Bohr Institute have been able to use the radar data and ice flow modelling to calculate the volume of water ice present in the glacier belts.
From the Phys.Org article:
Mars has distinct polar ice caps, but Mars also has belts of glaciers at its central latitudes in both the southern and northern hemispheres. A thick layer of dust covers the glaciers, so they appear as surface of the ground, but radar measurements show that underneath the dust there are glaciers composed of frozen water. New studies have now calculated the size of the glaciers and thus the amount of water in the glaciers. It is the equivalent of all of Mars being covered by more than one meter of ice. The results are published in the scientific journal, Geophysical Research Letters.
Several satellites orbit Mars and on satellite images, researchers have been able to observe the shape of glaciers just below the surface. For a long time scientists did not know if the ice was made of frozen water (H2O) or of carbon dioxide (CO2) or whether it was mud.
Using radar measurements from the NASA satellite, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, researchers have been able to determine that is water ice. But how thick was the ice and do they resemble glaciers on Earth?
A group of researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute have now calculated this using radar observations combined with ice flow modelling.
Data combined with modelling
"We have looked at radar measurements spanning ten years back in time to see how thick the ice is and how it behaves. A glacier is after all a big chunk of ice and it flows and gets a form that tells us something about how soft it is. We then compared this with how glaciers on Earth behave and from that we have been able to make models for the ice flow," explains Nanna Bjørnholt Karlsson, a postdoc at the Centre for Ice and Climate at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by frojack on Thursday April 09 2015, @03:45AM
In the bottom of the first linked article, they make that same point. But they also mention that ice simply sublimates into water vapor, and that the layer of dust is protecting the ice.
So how does that come about? Ice under dust, suggests that the dust came second, and some how didn't sublimate while it was exposed. They also suggest that much of the water vapor escapes into space.
Is this water seeping out of the planet?
The radar measured glacier flow. That implies the glaciers are being replenished from some source.
Snow day indeed.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Thursday April 09 2015, @04:10AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_on_Mars#Ice_ages [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glaciers_on_Mars#Climate_Changes [wikipedia.org]
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