Study Reveals Subsurface Geology Of Mars' Northern Ice Cap
Wednesday, May 26, 2010 - 13:40
in Astronomy & Space
Scientists have reconstructed the formation of a chasm larger than the Grand Canyon and a series of spiral troughs under the northern ice cap of Mars—solving a pair of mysteries dating back four decades while finding new evidence of climate change on Mars.In a pair of papers to be published in Nature, researchers from the University of Texas at Austin's Institute for Geophysics describe how they used radar data collected by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to reveal the subsurface geology of the red planet's northern ice cap.On Earth, large ice sheets are shaped mainly by ice flow. But on Mars, according to this latest research, other forces have shaped, and continue to shape, the polar ice caps. read more