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The ice cap at the North Pole of Mars. It appears as a layer on the right side of the black and white image. |
The radar antenna on the European Mars Express spacecraft has detected signs of liquid water at a depth of 2 kilometers beneath the surface of Mars.
The Marsis antenna was successfully deployed in June 2005 after a series of setbacks. It operates by transmitting radio pulses to Mars and then analyzing the time and intensity of the echoes that return.
When the radio waves penetrate the surface, they bounce back upon encountering the boundary layer between materials with different electrical properties, such as water and rock. However, aside from an experiment conducted by Apollo 17 on the Moon in 1972, this technique has not been tested elsewhere.
William Johnson and his colleagues at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory recently published measurements close to the surface of two regions in the northern hemisphere of Mars – the lowland region of Chryse Planitia and the North Pole. According to them, a circular structure, with a diameter of 250 kilometers, located at a depth of 1.5-2.5 kilometers beneath the surface of Chryse Planitia, is a deep crater formed by a meteorite. This crater has been buried by volcanic ash or soil for billions of years. The strength of the radar signal decreases very little when passing through the crater. This phenomenon indicates that there must be a large amount of ice present there.
Additionally, Marsis also explored the North Pole and discovered nearly pure water ice that is 1.8 kilometers thick beneath the surface. The measurements mentioned are the result of three data collection sessions by Marsis under special conditions. The upcoming research regions for Marsis include the southern hemisphere, which encompasses the South Pole.
Minh Sơn (According to NewScientist)
