Water ice discovered in Martian volcanoes in first ‘significant’ discovery: Study

Planetary researchers announced a major discovery from the solar system’s Red Planet on Monday – chunks of water ice equivalent to “60 Olympic-sized swimming pools” have been discovered on Mars.

Thin but widespread layers of water ice have been discovered atop three of Mars’ Tharsis volcanoes, located on a plateau at the planet’s equator, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

The Tharsis volcanoes, a chain of 12 large peaks, are the tallest volcanoes in our solar system, according to the study, which notes that water ice was discovered in the volcanoes Olympus, Arsia Ascraeus Mons and Ceraunius Tholus.

“Researchers estimate that frost accounts for at least 150,000 tons of water that exchanges between the surface and the atmosphere each day during cold seasons,” researchers from Brown University reported in a press release Monday, adding, “This is equivalent to approximately 60 Olympics .size pool.”

The European Space Agency’s ExoMars and Mars Express missions orbiting the planet captured over 30,000 images of water frost, which were then analyzed by a team of international researchers, according to the study.

The researchers found that the thin layer of frost — roughly “one-hundredth of a millimeter thick or about the width of a human hair,” according to the study — forms during sunrise and then evaporates during the daylight hours.

“We thought it was impossible for frost to form around the Martian equator, as the combination of the sun and the thin atmosphere keeps daytime temperatures relatively high both on the surface and at the top of the mountain – unlike what we see on Earth, where you can expect to see frozen peaks,” Adomas Valantinas, a postdoctoral fellow at Brown University who led the study, said in a press release.

“What we’re seeing may be a remnant of an ancient climate cycle on modern Mars, where you had precipitation and maybe even snowfall on these volcanoes in the past,” Valantinas said.

According to the study, the water freezes in the calderas of volcanoes, which are massive depressions on top of peaks that formed after past eruptions.

The researchers hypothesize that air circulating over the caldera creates a “unique microclimate that allows for the formation of thin patches of frost.”

The findings challenge scientists’ previous understanding of the Martian climate and provide an exciting avenue for further Martian exploration, according to the researchers.

Valantinas, who began analyzing the images in 2018, said: “This notion of a second genesis, of life beyond Earth, has always fascinated me.”