A ground-penetrating radar aboard the European Space Agency’s Mars Express satellite has found evidence for a pool of liquid water, a potentially habitable environment, buried under layers of ice and dust at the red planet’s south pole.
“This subsurface anomaly on Mars has radar properties matching water or water-rich sediments,” said Roberto Orosei, principal investigator of the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding instrument, or MARSIS, lead author of a paper in the journal Science describing the discovery.
The conclusion is based on observations of a relatively small area of Mars, but “it is an exciting prospect to think there could be more of these underground pockets of water elsewhere, yet to be discovered,” added Orosei.
Scientists have long theorised the presence of subsurface pools under the martian poles where the melting point of water could be decreased due to the weight of overlying layers of ice. The presence of salts in the Martian soil also would act to reduce the melting point and, perhaps, keep water liquid even at sub-freezing temperatures.
Earlier observations by MARSIS were inconclusive, but researchers developed new techniques to improve resolution and accuracy.
“We’d seen hints of interesting subsurface features for years but we couldn’t reproduce the result from orbit to orbit, because the sampling rates and resolution of our data was previously too low,” said Andrea Cicchetti, MARSIS operations manager.
“We had to come up with a new operating mode to bypass some onboard processing and trigger a higher sampling rate and thus improve the resolution of the footprint of our dataset. Now we see things that simply were not possible before.”
MARSIS works by firing penetrating radar beams at the surface of Mars and then measuring the strength of the signals as they are reflected back to the spacecraft.
The data indicating water came from a 200-kilometre-wide (124-mile-wide) area that shows the south polar region features multiple layers of ice and dust down to a depth of about 1.5 kilometres (0.9 miles). A particularly bright reflection below the layered deposits can be seen in a zone measuring about 20 kilometres (12 miles) across.
Orosei’s team interprets the bright reflection as the interface between overlying ice and a pool or pond of liquid water. The pool must be at least several centimetres thick for the MARSIS instrument to detect it.
“The long duration of Mars Express, and the exhausting effort made by the radar team to overcome many analytical challenges, enabled this much-awaited result, demonstrating that the mission and its payload still have a great science potential,” says Dmitri Titov, ESA’s Mars Express project scientist.
The discovery is significant because it raises the possibility, at least, of potentially habitable sub-surface environments.
“Some forms of microbial life are known to thrive in Earth’s subglacial environments, but could underground pockets of salty, sediment-rich liquid water on Mars also provide a suitable habitat, either now or in the past?” ESA asked in a statement. “Whether life has ever existed on Mars remains an open question.”
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Picture of the day - November 5, 2018
A cratered desert world with a thin carbon dioxide atmosphere. Both heavily cratered combined with extensive surface modification from volcanism and other forms of geological activity. Evidence of a tectonic fault-line is present in the above image.
Pictures of the day - December 19, 2018
Insight A-IV is the fourth and largest planet orbiting Insight A. It is a large ice giant planet with a mass 41.38 times that of Earth and a diameter of 4.41 Earths. The planet has a hot atmosphere with a temperature of 297 F, which is dominated by hydrogen and helium. Additionally, a single large moon orbits the planet alongside 13 smaller asteroid-like satellites.
The planet orbits it’s sun at an average distance of 0.36 AU, completing an orbit once every 72.17 Earth Days. The planet is not tidally locked, but has a slow rotational rate of 288.70 Earth days, resulting in solar days that last 96.23 Earth days.
Insight A-IV
Stormy North Pole
Setting Sun
Crescents
View from the moon
TOUCHDOWN OF INSIGHT ON MARS! Man, this just never gets old. I am SO over the Moon (or Mars) each and every time our incredible civilization accomplishes such amazing technological feats. Congratulations to all who made this happen. Pop the corks!
One of the landing team members just mentioned that InSight will soon deploy instruments with which to search for water on Mars. Where there is water, there is life. It is highly unlikely that the water is sterile. I also would like to remind ourselves that life exists here in Earth where in the most inhospitable life conditions, extreme heat, extreme darkness, life exist. (At the exact time of reentry and touchdown, the street in front of my place was being blacktopped with 2 gigantic steel rollers causing the ground, foundation walls, windows to shake and vibrate. @krixomatic says, “Feels like we’re inside the lander!” I exploded with laughter. Can’t make this up.) What do you think guys? Tag someone 👥 🔽🔽🔽🔽🔽👩🚀 FOLLOW @barışözcan 👩🚀 FOLLOW @nasa 👩🚀 FOLLOW @umutayildiz . #CFP +#gaintrick #explorepage #viral #trending #ayoandteo#shmateo #piggybackchallenge #newfreezerchallenge#blocboyjb #shootchallenge #reverse #reversechallenge#toespin #dancers #waterchallenge #dancetrends#2017dancetrends #worldstar #invisibleboxchallenge#tagafriend #views #funnyvideo #freex #clicknow#neverjudgeabookbyitscover #dontjudgechallenge
#2littchallenge #ne #leftrightcha (West Virginia) https://www.instagram.com/p/BqqH3CKHdGA/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=15w8sydhghkjz
Here we come across the system’s third planet, a Jupiter-Sized gas giant 1.18 Jupiter Masses orbiting the two suns at an average distance of 2.33 AU. Four massive moon’s all with atmospheres orbit’s the giant. The planet has a very faint ring system in orbit.
High Resolution Pic of the 3rd Planet
Note, the large red nebula in the background NGC 604, one of the largest know nebulas. The Vernier System is located 4,600 light years from the nebula. From here NGC 604 covers over 16 arc degrees of the sky (36 Full-moons), and shines with an average magnitude of -1.91.
The first moon is barren with a surface covered in craters and gray-colored regolith. It is 3.4 lunar masses, with a radius of 2,603.31 km. A thin sulfur dioxide atmosphere clings to the surface. The atmosphere has a very low surface pressure of 0.0001 atmosphere’s. The moon still appears to be volcanically active.
High Resolution Pic of the 1st moon
The second moon has 4 lunar masses with a radius of 2,956.36 kilometers. It’s surface is more geologically diverse with larger quantities of iron oxide. It is more Mars-like than Lunar-like. A sulfur dioxide atmosphere also covers the surface, but is thicker with a surface pressure of 0.017 atmospheres, or roughly just under 3 times thicker than the atmosphere of Mars.
High Resolution Pic of the 2nd moon
The third satellite is by far the largest, and is an Earth-sized moon with a mass of 0.56 Earth’s and a radius 93% that of Earth. It has a thick carbon dioxide-ammonia atmosphere, with a surface pressure 3.48 times that of Earth. Weather is very active on the surface, and the temperature averaging 230 K (-45 °F) supports liquid sulfur dioxide. Sulfur dioxide rain is also common on the surface. The satellite also appears to have a magnetic field.
High Resolution Pic of the 3rd moon
The fourth moon is a second largest with a mass of 0.07 times that of Earth and a radius of 3,274.23 kilometers. It also has a thin sulfur dioxide atmosphere, and sulfur dioxide ice-caps. The atmosphere is 0.017 atmosphere’s thick.
High Resolution Pic of the 4th moon
The System Tag for this system in Spaceengine is RS 1229-169-6-235375-219.
Here are the outer 4 planets orbiting Insight A. Each planet has a large ring systems.
Insight A-VI (0.65 Earth masses, Water World with life, 1.10 AU)
Insight A-VII (3.10 Earth masses, Cold Desert World, 1.97 AU)
Insight A-VIII (15.46 Earth Masses, Ice Giant, 4.01 AU)
Insight A-IX (17.40 Earth Masses, Ice Giant, 7.34 AU)
Space Engine System ID: RS-5581-42-6-76887-1116 A
Picture of the Day - October 25, 2018
Two frozen worlds very almost identical in their size ratio to one another as the Pluto-Charon double dwarf planet system.
Picture of the Day - October 29, 2018
Lush and green Earth-like planet with life and a large moon orbiting close by.
Picture of the Day - January 26, 2019
Barren and battered worlds.
Not space related, but wanted to see what my space engine followers thought of this question. Hoping to get some good memes out of it.
Are male sharks now going to be banned if their claspers are visible? Also are female sharks with scars on their face going to be banned since that can be considered sexual abuse by a male shark?
My Space Engine Adventures, also any space related topic or news. www.spaceengine.org to download space engine. The game is free by the way. Please feel free to ask me anything, provide suggestions on systems to visit or post any space related topic.Check out my other blog https://bunsandsharks.tumblr.com for rabbit and shark blog.
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