The Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), which is orbiting Mars, has discovered a high quantity of water in the canyon system. The water discovered in the Marineris valleys is beneath Mars’ surface.
The probe was mapping the hydrogen – a measure of the amount of water in the uppermost meter of Martian soil – when it came upon its chemical remnants. The found reservoir covers an area of more than 45,000 square kilometers, roughly the size of Haryana.
“We can see down one meter and find out what is occurring beneath the surface of the planet and identify water-rich ‘oases’ that could not be identified in prior investigations,” said Igor Mitrofanov of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Space Research Institute in Moscow.
The high-resolution epithermal neutron detector telescope (FREND) aboard the spacecraft produced the finding. In the Mariner Valley canyon system, he discovered a location with abnormally high levels of hydrogen.
“If we believe that the hydrogen we detect is coupled to water molecules, up to 40% of the surface material in this location appears to be water,” Igor Mitrofanov remarked.
The water discovered by the orbiter might be ice or water chemically bonded to other minerals in the soil, according to the researchers. Other data, however, indicate that the minerals discovered in this region of Mars often contain just a few percent water, which is far less than recent observations indicated.
Given the possibility of a lower-latitude landing mission on Mars, discovering such a water source on the planet might be advantageous for future missions to the Red Planet.
