New Evidence Suggests Large Water Ice Supply near Mars’ Equator

2024 · VOA Learning English

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Transcript

1. A Mars explorer has discovered new evidence of a large amount of water ice buried near the planet’s equator

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2. The discovery was made with data collected by the Mars Express orbiter. The spacecraft is operated by the European Space Agency (ESA).

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3. The American space agency NASA is a partner on the orbiter’s mission

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4. ESA launched Mars Express in 2003 and it has been studying the Red Planet ever since.

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5. The mission’s main goal is to use its seven scientific instruments to search for signs of water underneath the surface of Mars.

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6. Scientists involved in the new research say data suggesting the presence of newly discovered ice deposits could mean Mars may have once supported life.

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7. The Mars Express orbiter collected data around an area of the planet known as the Medusae Fossae Formation (or MFF).

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8. NASA describes this formation as “a soft, easily eroded deposit that extends for nearly 1,000 kilometers along the equator of Mars.”

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9. Scientists believe the MFF was most likely formed by wind-blown dust or volcanic ash.

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10. The formations could have formed after volcanic activity estimated to have taken place up to 3.8 billion years ago.

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11. Images of the area show raised areas that scientists thought in the past might contain dust blown around the planet by wind over many years.

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12. But the new research used newer data collected by the orbiter’s MARSIS instrument. It is “a subsurface radar sounder” with a 40-meter-long antenna

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13. The MARSIS instrument is designed to send radio waves to an area scientists choose.

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14. It then attempts to listen to and examine echoes produced by the radio waves.

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15. The echoes help researchers recognize where water or ice might be, NASA explains

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16. Scientists say any water identified near the surface results in stronger signals while the presence of ice or other materials would produce weaker signals.

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17. The team said MARSIS readings suggest the MFF area of Mars contains a large amount of water ice rather than wind-blown dust.

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18. Thomas Watters of the U.S. Smithsonian Institution led the new research.

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19. His team’s findings were recently published in a study in Geophysical Research Letters

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20. He said in a statement the radar data showed the deposits in the MFF area were even thicker than earlier measurement estimates had shown.

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21. The researchers said the data showed the examined deposits extended beneath the Mars surface to depths up to 3.7 kilometers.

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22. They seemed to contain layers of dust and ice, all topped by a protective layer of dry dust or ash.”

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23. Earlier data examinations of the MFF area found similarities in the electrical properties of deposits there to ice-rich deposits found in the planet’s north and south

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24. poles. The latest MARSIS data strengthens this evidence by suggesting similarities between deposit layering in the MFF and the planet’s poles.

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25. “The radar signals match what we’d expect to see from layered ice,” Watters said.

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26. He added that the radar waves were found to be “similar to signals we see from Mars’s polar caps, which we know to be very ice rich.”

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27. It is not the first time scientists have discovered strong evidence for the presence of water ice on Mars.

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28. But the researchers say the latest study suggests the largest amount of water ever identified in the MFF area.

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29. They estimated the total amount of water contained there would be enough “to cover the surface of Mars to a depth of about 1.5 to 3 meters.”

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30. Colin Wilson is a project scientist with the Mars Express mission. He said while the new finding is exciting, it also “raises as many questions as answers.”

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31. He continued, “How long ago did these ice deposits form, and what was Mars like at that time?”

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32. Wilson said if confirmed to be water ice, the large deposits “would change our understanding of Mars climate history.”

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33. Watters added that since the discovery was made in an area near the Martian equator, it could be considered a good place for future exploration missions.

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34. He explained that with a lower elevation the MFF area would be considered “an ideal landing spot for spacecraft.”

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