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Lots of Pure Water Ice at Mars North Pole

by Nancy Atkinson on January 20, 2009

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Mars North Polar Ice Cap. Credit: NASA/JPL

Mars North Polar Ice Cap. Credit: NASA/JPL


Planum Boreum, Mar’s north polar cap contains water ice “of a very high degree of purity,” according to an international study. Using radar data from the SHARAD (SHAllow RADar) instrument on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), French researchers say the data point to 95 percent purity in the polar ice cap. The north polar cap is a dome of layered, icy materials, similar to the large ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica, consisting of layered deposits, with mostly ice and a small amount of dust. Combined, the north and south polar ice caps are believed to hold the equivalent of two to three million cubic kilometers (0.47-0.72 million cu. miles) of ice, making it roughly 100 times more than the total volume of North America’s Great Lakes, which is 22,684 cu. kms (5,439 miles).

The study was done by researchers at France’s National Institute of Sciences of the Universe (Insu), using the Italian built SHARAD radar sounder on the US built MRO. SHARAD looks for liquid or frozen water in the first few hundreds of feet (up to 1 kilometer) of Mars’ crust by using subsurface sounding. It can detect liquid water and profile ice.

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Mars southern polar cap was once thought to be carbon dioxide ice, but ESA’s Mars Express confirmed that it is composed of a mixture of water and carbon dioxide.

The study on Mars north polar cap appears in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, published by the American Geophysical Union.

Source: PhysOrg

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About

Nancy Atkinson is Universe Today's Senior Editor. She also is the host of the NASA Lunar Science Institute podcast and works with the Astronomy Cast and 365 Days of Astronomy podcasts. Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador.

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  • Eric Near Buffalo

    @ Shorty Long:

    You bring up some good points. The weak or lack of magnetic field does pose a problem. I think you’d have to find a sci-fi way of starting it back up and put an emphasis on figuring out if it’s really that far out of the realm of acheiving such a thing.

    I know it was just a movie with a really sci-fi plot, but is “The Core” really that out of whack? Would that method work? Would you need at least a semi-molten core to start with? My guess is you would and if popular belief is correct, Mars is pretty much cold and solidified.

  • KIpp

    Although I don’t agree on all points, Alhazred has a point. From an econcomic as well as technical simplicity point of view, consider the concept of exploring and colonizing near earth asteroids.

    You’d want to pick your targets carefully. You might not find as much water as you’d like, unless you pick things like comets. But It would be so much easier to get to and get off of such targets. Plus imagine the mining possibilities… Pick a metallic asteroid, all that metal right on the surface. If your target has a fairly circular orbit, you should have good consistent solar flux for power. You will have to build hardened living quarters but your construction materials are at hand and your probably going to excavate anyway.

    You can even use solar powered ionic thrust to stabilize orbits over the long haul, but that would take a long time.

    Just a thought…

  • Alan

    Great! Assuming the other 5% isn’t something toxic contaminating the water, I guess we can soon look forward to using the polar caps as our restrooms and dumping grounds like we’ve done on Earth to our Great Lakes and oceans.

  • Caveman69

    An observation on Mars weak gravity field, as compared to earth. The reason earths core remains molten is due to gravity. Many factors of gravity from the proximity to the sun, to haveing one focused polarity balance (The Moon), to the percentage and makeup of the our core being mostly affected by the inductance of “Heavenly” gravitational forces, fits our Earth engine formula. The first step of afftecting the Mars terraform would be a thorough study of it’s core makeup. The real answers after that rely on weather simple solutions on grander scales, like induction, large scale fusion reactors, or microwave focusers, can be applied to “jump start” and sustain a Mars Engine formula. Only then would the red planet repair itself without further human interaction. Just my opinion.

  • Caveman69

    I hate to admit it, but some of what Alhazred is a driveing factor. You will always have conservative economy bound, and liberal pioneer thinkers. On one hand, forward thinking is why this planet is blessed with industrial and free America. However, leaps of faith do not pay the bills. The interesting thing about being human, is we get to be both conservative and liberal. Alhazred, seems freaked out by current events, but is missing the bigger picture, our next big ocean to cross lies skyward like it or not. If you believe everythings eventual, then the speed at which we transend from stellarly castrated to an inter planetary species is directly proportional to the faith of the world economy. Make it profitable to be on other worlds, and you wont be able to keep deep pockets on this rock.

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