CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) – Mars has thousands of glaciers buried beneath its dusty surface, enough frozen water to blanket the planet with a 3.6-foot(1.1- metre) thick layer of ice, scientists said yesterday.
The glaciers are found in two bands in the mid-southern and mid-northern latitudes. Radar data, collected by Mars-orbiting satellites, combined with computer models of ice flows show the planet has about 5.3 trillion cubic feet (150 billion cubic metres) of water locked in the ice, according to a study published in this week’s issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letter.
“The ice at the mid-latitudes is therefore an important part of Mars’ water reservoir,” Nanna Bjornholt Karlsson, a researcher at the University of Copenhagen’s Neils Bohr Institute, said in a statement.
Scientists have been trying to figure out how Mars transformed from a warm, wet and presumably Earth-like planet early in its history into the cold, dry desert that exists today.
