Dry ice glaciers are on the move at the south pole of Mars

There are a lot of things in common between Earth and Mars.

There is no liquid water on the surface, the atmosphere is very thin and cold, and there is no tectonic plate action. There are many differences.

It has many things that remind me of home. The layers in the crater look like they were transported from Utah. Dust devils, river beds, depositional river Deltas, and more are included.

I didn't know that Mars used to have glaciers. A new paper claims that glaciers are moving at the Red Planet's south pole.

A glacier is a mass of ice that can move due to the pressure on its base. The structure of the ice at the base will shift due to the sheer weight of the ice cube and the fact that it is very cold. Water ice glaciers can create enough pressure that the ice at the base can melt and become liquid water, making it easier to flow.

Mars is not the same as the other planets. It is so cold there that water ice is more rigid than it is on Earth. There is a mountain of ice on Earth. Even at the poles, carbon dioxide ice is still able to freeze at a lower temperature than the rest of the planet. It can flow up to 100 times faster. The north pole on Mars used to have glaciers in the past.

There is a different pole on Mars. It is warmer in the summer when Mars is closer to the Sun than in the winter when it is farther away. The structure is complicated because of this.

There is some dry ice at the south pole that lasts through the summer season. That layer is only a few meters thick and sits on top of a much larger and deeper cap of water ice that extends for quite a way from the pole. There is a lot of water ice.

The difference between water and dry ice can be revealed by the radar reflection sent back to the probe. Sometimes it can be difficult to interpret those results.

radar data shows that there is frozen carbon dioxide under the austral Mars surface. It reaches a kilometer deep in places, and scientists measure a total amount of at least 16,500cubic kilometers, enough to make a dry ice cube 25 kilometers on a side. There is a huge mass. It's at least. The amount of carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere is equivalent to that.

How did it make it there? In the past, the spin axis of Mars was closer to its orbital plane than it is today, which is why the previous attempts to explain it relied on. This is referred to as a planet's obliquity.

In the past, the poles of Mars were cooler because of the lower obliquity. The scientists have shown that this can't work. They show that the amount and depth of carbon dioxide ice at the Martian south pole isn't explained by atmospheric deposition.

The movement of dry ice can be seen in the model. The slopes of the basins help guide the dry ice into them, which is why it's so thick.

Even though the top layers can be lost as the dry ice subslimates, the thick deposit of dry ice has persisted for half a million years. The models show that the glaciers are still flowing but at a slower pace than in the past.

The small red world is easier to see in telescopes when Earth and Mars are in the same part of their circle. I have seen the residual ice cap in the south polar region many times. There are glaciers on the move there even as we watch, and they remind me of home. It is still a strong reminder of home. For now.

Nuking the south pole is a terrible idea and won't work anyways.