Another beautiful picture has been captured by the HiRISE camera. Water ice can be seen from a cliff on Mars. The ice is obscured by a layer of sediment, but it is visible.
Mars may have had oceans that were hidden as ice. It is mostly buried in the planet. It is under a thick layer of water. The largest volcano in the Solar System is located to the north of the Milankovic crater.
There are three volcanoes on Mars, with Alba Mons to the north and Olympus Mons to the northeast. Milankovic crater is almost alone in the flat plain of Vastitas Borealis. The image is from NASA.
Mars lost its atmosphere between 3.8 billion and 4.2 billion years ago. The water is mostly ice. There is evidence of a complex of liquid saltwater lakes under the south polar region. The researchers proposed that the magma activity in the preceding one million years created enough heat to keep the water in liquid form. The discovery of the subglacial polar lakes could be explained by other phenomena.
The existence of subglacial lakes of water on Mars will be controversial for a long time. The existence of water ice is not controversial. We have seen it.
The shallow subsurface was exposed when NASA's Phoenix Lander arrived on Mars in 2008. The scientists think the white patch is water ice. The image or video was catalogued by Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
The water on Mars is locked into the planet's crust at varying depths, but it can be heated by magma under the polar region. Scientists think that there is at least 5 million square kilometres of ice underground, with even more at depths beyond our current instruments. Some of the ice is visible in the HiRISE image.
The leading HiRISE image shows the presence of ice. The image below is a representation of what human eyes would see.
The image doesn't show the ice as well as the IR image, but it resembles what the ice looks like to human eyes. NASA/JPL/UArizona
In the last few years, we have improved our understanding of Martian water. Between 30% and 90% of Mars' original water may be frozen under the surface, with large deposits in the Arcadia Planitia region, according to a study. NASA made a map of the water on Mars. NASA said that some of the water is only 12 inches deep, making it easy to access for future explorers.
Humans are reaching out to Mars. We are reconstructing the planet's history with the help of our satellites, landers, and rovers. Mars was once warm and wet. Future sample-return missions could confirm the presence of fossils. That would be a huge discovery, worthy of all the attention it would get.
We want to go to Mars. Our explorers will know where to find water when that happens.
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