Unpublished discovery in the mountains of Mars

They were discovered for the first time ice water tanks the great mountains of Mars, the Tharsis volcanoes, the largest in the solar system, towering three times the height Everest, in the central part of this planet. Due to this situation, frost formation was not expected, since found at lower latitudes planets.

In the cold months, a layer of ice thinner than a human hair, It forms in the craters of volcanoes and on areas of their edges. Subsequently Evaporates after a few hours dawn. Despite the thinness of this layer, it covers a very large surface area. In fact, scientists have calculated that during the coldest seasons on Mars 150,000 tons of water, equivalent 60 Olympic swimming pools, They condense daily on the tops of these mountains.

For the first time, frozen water was found in the equatorial regions of Mars

This study has just been published in the journal Nature and was implemented by a team led by University of Bern (Switzerland)thanks to the Mars camera CASSISon board the probe ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter European Space Agency (ESA). Adomas Valantinasone of the scientists at the University of Bern, states in an ESA statement that “this Frozen water was discovered for the first time on the tops of volcanoes and this is the first time we have detected water ice in the equatorial regions of Mars.”

To identify the frost, a team of scientists analyzed more than 5000 images shot with this camera from April 2018. CASSIS provided observations of local dust activity, seasonal changes in CO2 ice deposition, and the existence of dry avalanches on Mars.

This study was confirmed using independent observations High Resolution Stereo Cameras (HRSC) on board ESA’s Mars Express orbiter and spectrometer Nadir and eclipse for Mars discovery (NOMAD) on board TGO.

This is not the first time water has been discovered on Mars.

Spacecraft orbiting Mars have on other occasions returned evidence of frozen and liquid water on the Red Planet, as well as larger quantities at the north and south poles. Based on the landscape, scientists predict that the planet was once wetter and even habitable, full of giant lakes and rivers. “This may be due to atmospheric and climatic processes that operated before, perhaps millions of years ago,” says Valantinas.

Scientists considered this discovery unlikely

Frost looks like bluish tint at the foot of the volcano and it is not perceived on the well-lit slopes of this. Despite this discovery, scientists believed hardly that frost can form on volcano peaks under sunlight and the Red Planet’s thin atmosphere maintains very high temperatures during the day both at the summit and at ground level. However, in the article Nature Geoscience, These scientists claim that winds can carry moist air from mountain slopes to the eyes of volcanoes, where it condenses and settles as frost.

The Tharsis region of Mars is a vast volcanic plateau near the planet’s equator. There are a dozen large volcanoes here, including Pavonis Mons

And Olympus Monswhose height is more than 14 and almost 26 kilometers, respectively. almost two and three times higher than Everest. Olympus Mons It is much wider than it is tall and It covers an area the size of France.

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