Mars has glaciers, but it was unclear how long ice contain. New research now suggests that glaciers contain enough ice to cover quite Mars with more than one meter thick ice.
On the poles of Mars is ice. But also slightly lower widths – on both the northern and southern hemisphere – is to find ice, as shown by recent research. It is stored in glaciers. You see glaciers, because they are covered with a layer of dust, but observations from satellites show that they are indeed, and that they consist of water ice.
Models
The big question is: how much ice containing these glaciers? Researchers looked for an answer to that question. “We looked at radar measurements covering a period of ten years to see how thick the ice is and how it behaves,” explains researcher Nanna Bjørnholt Karlsson out. “A glacier is finally a large chunk of ice slides and its shape can tell us more about how the ice is soft. We then compared this with how glaciers on Earth behave and on that basis we have models made of the movement of the ice “
Ties
Previous research has already shown that Mars has thousands of glacier-like structures. They are located in band-shaped zones on both the northern and southern hemisphere (see the figure). Some parts of this area, we have detailed images that were used by the researchers to determine how glaciers move and what shape they are. Other areas are relatively few data available. In the latter case the little information supplemented with information on the well-studied areas, so the researchers could still figure out how thick it was glacial.
1.1 meter
“We have calculated that the ice in the glaciers is comparable to just over 150 billion cubic meters of ice. With such an amount of ice can cover the entire surface of Mars with a 1.1 meter thick ice. The glacier is therefore an important part of Mars’ water supply. “
That the glacier as well state manages to keep, is probably due to the layer of dust that rests on it. The dust prevents the evaporated water ice.
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