Traces of Water-Ice Have Been Found on Mars!

The planet Mars is the planet we know as being the “hot red planet.” In its previous life, Mars was once iced over, but has not been for billions and billions of years. Two months ago according to the New York Times, water-ice was discovered on this particular planet in our very solar system on its northern plains. The thing NASA’s experts have not found though is any trace of water! The mission scientists, with the help of their Mars Odyssey spacecraft, confirmed that the patches of white that were visible were without a doubt ice. Phoenix’s weather station also detected some signs of water vapor in the air at Mars. Regardless of the water vapor, there is still no sign of actual water evident on the surface or even a little below the surface, despite the constant measurements being taken almost 24-7.

“On Earth, dropping moisture level in the air leads to the condensation of morning dew; on Mars, because the water layer on the dust particles would be only a couple of molecules thick, it would not freeze into the crystal structure of ice, but instead remain more liquid-like, with molecules able to move along the surface of the grains.”

The moisture in the air noticeable during the day obviously has to go somewhere at night. The only likely place is back into the soil. It is suggested that the water layer is so incredibly thin, that the molecules simply end up binding tightly to the dirt on the surface of the dirt and are just not abundant enough for them to actually be visible.

“The next step is for Phoenix to jam its electroconductivity probe deeper into the soil, closer to the ice layer. Maybe then, Phoenix will once again discover water.”

The fact that this has occurred and has been discovered proves that problems/changes are not only occurring on our planet (global warming, increase in greenhouse gases, etc.) but are also occurring on others in our solar system. We can only wait to see what this means exactly and what this means for our future.