Tag Archives: water ice

Islands of ice on Mars (and Pluto)

[Editor’s note: From a paper by Michael Sori and three co-authors recently published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.] Islands of ice on Mars and Pluto • Deposits in 31 craters in the south polar region of Mars likely represent … Continue reading

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Mars’ water-ice clouds thicken toward evening

[Editor’s note: From a paper by Michael Smith recently published in Icarus.] Local time variation of water ice clouds on Mars as observed by THEMIS • The local time variation of cloud optical depth is examined from THEMIS observations. • … Continue reading

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North polar residual ice cap has recent snow-like surface

[Editor’s note: From a paper by Jonathan Bapst and three co-authors recently published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.] Thermophysical Properties of the North Polar Residual Cap using Mars Global Surveyor Thermal Emission Spectrometer • We identify residual water ice … Continue reading

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Water-ice cliffs found in Mars’ mid-latitudes

Researchers using NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) have found eight sites where thick deposits of ice beneath Mars’ surface are exposed in faces of eroding slopes. These eight scarps, with slopes as steep as 55 degrees, reveal new information about … Continue reading

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HiRISE: Dunes buried by water ice

Dunes buried by water ice. Beautiful Mars series.

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Terraced craters point to subsurface ice sheets

Just beneath the planet’s dirt surface, University of Arizona researchers found an enormous slab of water ice, measuring 130 feet thick and covering an area equivalent to that of California and Texas combined. It was a “crazy-looking crater” on the … Continue reading

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Mars has mid-latitude belts of glaciers

Mars has distinct polar ice caps, but Mars also has belts of glaciers at its central latitudes in both the southern and northern hemispheres. A thick layer of dust covers the glaciers, so they appear as the surface of the … Continue reading

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Liquid water and water Ice on Gale Crater, Mars

Planetary Geomorphology Image of the Month, September 2014: Alberto G. Fairén, (Cornell University and Centro de Astrobiología, Spain). Gale Crater, the site of the currently active Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) or Curiosity Rover mission, is a ~154-km-diameter impact crater formed … Continue reading

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Ground ice in fresh craters down to 39° north

Since 2008, the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has imaged 20 small impact craters and crater clusters that expose fresh ground ice. A paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research from a team led by Colin Dundas (USGS … Continue reading

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