Ice on Mars: NASA radar detects vast glaciers on red planet



Vast glaciers, up to a mile thick and tens of miles long, have been discovered on Mars in what scientists believe is the remnants of an ice age.

The ice sheets are the ‘most dramatic’ evidence yet of climate change on the red planet, and could help us understand temperature shifts on Earth, the U.S. researchers say.



They detected the sheets beneath a protective layer of rocky debris using a ground-penetrating radar on the NASA Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter.

Revealed: Huge glaciers have been detected beneath rocky debris that may be the the remnants of ice sheets that blanketed parts of Mars in a past ice age

The discovery reveals a previously untapped source of drinking water and rocket fuel, which promises to aid future manned missions to the planet.

Scientists have previously detected ice on Mars but never in such large quantities away from the poles.

The glaciers were located the Hellas Basin region – an area spanning mid-latitudes in the Southern hemisphere, which is equivalent to the latitude of Australia on Earth.

A similar band with even larger quantities of ice is thought to be awaiting discovery in the Northern hemisphere.



Vast: The glaciers are up to a mile thick and one is estimated to be as big as Los Angeles

The biggest ice sheets, thought to have formed 100 million years ago, are up to 13 miles long and 60 miles wide, the team revealed in Science magazine.

Experts have already shown evidence of climate change on Mars, but lead author Dr. Jack Holt from the University of Texas in Austin says that this is ‘by far the most dramatic’.

It is likely that the glaciers will have preserved a frozen record of the planet’s past chemistry, which will give us a snap shot of what the environment and climate was like, he explained.



But Dr Holt is not expecting to find the highly anticipated evidence of life on Mars. He believes the planet’s surface could not support life in the ice age.



Then and now: Three craters containing the glaciers covered by rocky debris, left, and a computer reconstruction of how the planet surface would have looked in a former ice age, right

This discovery is similar to massive ice glaciers that have been detected under rocky coverings in Antarctica.



'Altogether, these glaciers almost certainly represent the largest reservoir of water ice on Mars that is not in the polar caps,' said Dr. Holt.

'Just one of the features we examined is three times larger than the city of Los Angeles and up to half a mile thick.



'And there are many more. In addition to their scientific value, they could be a source of water to support future exploration of Mars.'



The ground-penetrating radar previously detected similar craters by the cliffs in the northern hemisphere of Mars, which are believed to conceal more glaciers.



'There's an even larger volume of water ice in the northern deposits,' said geologist Jeffrey J. Plaut.



'The fact these features are in the same latitude bands, about 35 to 60 degrees in both hemispheres, points to a climate-driven mechanism for explaining how they got there.'







