Photo: ESA / Handout / Getty Images
For: The Opinion
Tuesday, November 5
They discover a gigantic reservoir of “hidden water” in the largest canyon in the Solar System
New data from the FREND Fine Resolution Epithermal Neutron Detector, which helps map hydrogen on the surface of Mars, from the European Space Agency’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and the Russian agency Roscosmos discovered “significant amounts of water” in the Valles Marineris canyon of 3, 000 kilometers, the largest known in the solar system, about ten times longer and five times deeper than Earth’s Grand Canyon.
After detecting an unusually high amount of hydrogen in a region the size of Holland located in the heart of Valles Marineris, the researchers now claim that the 40% of near-surface material in this region of 41, square kilometers could be water ice or min water-rich wastes, potentially offering a new way to locate the precious material in the seemingly extremely arid world.
Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO)
With the TGO, scientists can look at up to a meter below this layer of dust and see what really happens under the surface of Mars and, above all, locate water-rich “oases” that they could not be detected with previous instruments , “said Igor Mitrofanov, of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow (Russia), in a press release.
“We found that a central part de Valles Marineris is full of water , much more water than we expected, ”said study co-author Alexey Malakhov, scientist of the Space Research Institute that of the Russian Academy of Sciences. “This is very similar to the permafrost regions of the Earth, where water ice persists permanently under dry soil due to constant low temperatures,” he added.
Valles Marineris is the largest canyon in the #SolarSystem & very dramatic, at some 10 X longer and 5X deeper than Earth’s Grand Canyon 🤯
I hope that some of you humans may one day explore this location in person – it would be a very promising target for martian #water 💧 pic.twitter.com/aEPtnLBp91
– ExoMars orbiter (@ESA_TGO) December 12, 2021
In search of the water that once abounded on Mars
The discovery represents interesting possibilities for the exploration of Mars. And it was no wonder: the manned missions to Mars could in the future encounter water not far from the surface, at least you near the equator. The current find is thus added to different discoveries that unravel the secrets that the perhaps not so arid Red Planet hides.
An October article in Science had confirmed that the Jezero crater on Mars was once a lake. Images sent by NASA’s Perseverance helped make the discovery. Last year, other research work had shown the presence of three underground water lakes at the south pole of the red planet.
“Knowing more about how and where water exists on Mars today is essential to understand what happened to the water that once abounded on Mars , and aids our search for habitable environments, possible signs of past life and organic materials from the early days of Mars, “said Colin Wilson, ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter project scientist.
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