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takyon writes:

ExoMars discovers hidden water in Mars' Grand Canyon

The ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter has spotted significant amounts of water at the heart of Mars' dramatic canyon system, Valles Marineris.

The water, which is hidden beneath Mars' surface, was found by the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO)'s FREND instrument, which is mapping the hydrogen – a measure of water content – in the uppermost metre of Mars' soil.

While water is known to exist on Mars, most is found in the planet's cold polar regions as ice. Water ice is not found exposed at the surface near the equator, as temperatures here are not cold enough for exposed water ice to be stable.

[...] "FREND revealed an area with an unusually large amount of hydrogen in the colossal Valles Marineris canyon system: assuming the hydrogen we see is bound into water molecules, as much as 40% of the near-surface material in this region appears to be water."

The water-rich area is about the size of the Netherlands and overlaps with the deep valleys of Candor Chaos, part of the canyon system considered promising in our hunt for water on Mars.

The evidence for unusually high hydrogen abundances in the central part of Valles Marineris on Mars
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019103521004528
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2021.114805

Original Submission