Mars Wears Multiple Belts of Glaciers With Enough Ice to Freeze Entire Surface

Researchers recently found belts of ice glaciers in the northern and southern hemisphere of Mars, protected by a layer of surface dust.

To the ordinary eye, the belts look like rest of Mars but radar images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show the presence of massive amounts of water ice, enough to cover Martian surface with more than a meter-deep ice. Researchers say the glaciers are between 30 degrees and 50 degrees latitude which corresponds to the location of Denmark on earth.

"We have looked at radar measurements spanning ten years back in time to see how thick the ice is and how it behaves. A glacier is after all a big chunk of ice and it flows and gets a form that tells us something about how soft it is. We then compared this with how glaciers on Earth behave and from that we have been able to make models for the ice flow," said Nanna Bjørnholt Karlsson, a postdoctoral researcher at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen.

Dust on top protects the ice from evaporating into space. Studies have shown that Mars may have hosted a suitable environment for life with oceans of water in the past. The finding of ice researchers believe is, one of the many indicators that the red planet was not always the cold desert it now is.

"The ice at the mid-latitudes is therefore an important part of Mars' water reservoir," Karlsson said.