NASA finds huge underground ice deposit larger than New Mexico on Mars

Here is good news for Mars Mission - a new study from NASA has revealed the presence of a huge underground ice deposit on Mars which is more extensive in area than the state of New Mexico. The deposit holds about as much water as that in Lake Superior, the largest of the Great Lakes.
This discovery is based on data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Scientists had examined part of Mars' Utopia Planitia region, in the mid-northern latitudes. They used the ground-penetrating Shallow Subsurface Radar (SHARD) instrument that was on board the MRO.
This has been reported in zeenews.india.com dated 23 November 2016.

As per initial estimates of NASA, the deposit ranges in thickness from about 260 feet (80 meters) to about 560 feet (170 meters) and its composition is 50 to 85 percent water ice, mixed with dust or larger rocky particles. It is presumed that this deposit formed as snowfall accumulating into an ice sheet mixed with dust during a period in Mars history when the planet's axis was more tilted than it is today.
The ice deposit is covered by just 3 feet to 33 feet (1 to 10 meters) of soil.
Today, Mars has an axial tilt of 25 degrees, thereby it accumulates large amounts of water ice at the poles. Incidentally, Utopia Planitia is a basin with a diameter of about 2,050 miles (3,300 kilometers). It was the result of a major impact early in Mars' history and subsequently filled. NASA had sent the Viking 2 Lander to a site near the center of Utopia in 1976.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org


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