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Mars North Pole Ice Less Dusty Than Expected
Confirmed
In Short: A dusty layer of frost forms over the ice every winter and disappears in the summer, revealing older, cleaner ice.
Planetary scientists have discovered that the exposed water ice at Mars' north pole contains less than 3% dust, a significant reduction from previous estimates of up to 25%, according to a new analysis of orbital and lander data.
The study, published in a recent analysis, used data from NASA’s Phoenix lander and instruments on spacecraft orbiting Mars.
Dr. Aditya Khuller, a researcher at the University of Washington, noted, “We know there is water ice in the area surrounding the north pole of Mars, but there has been widespread disagreement as to how dusty that ice is.”
Khuller and his team found that the top layer of Martian polar ice was roughly 3% dust, far below earlier estimates.
The researchers used a combination of different datasets, including the Observatoire pour la Minéralogie, l’Eau, les Glaces et l’Activité (OMEGA) spectrometer, the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM), and the Surface Stereo Imager (SSI) onboard the Mars Phoenix Lander.
The findings suggest that the north pole is stacked like an ice-cream sandwich, with layers of dustier ice between slabs of cleaner ice.
The implications of this study go beyond present-day ice-dust layering and offer insight into past climates on Mars.
Khuller explained, “Just like a dark T-shirt in the sun makes you warmer, dusty ice gets warmer and vaporizes faster on Mars.”
The study also suggests that Mars experiences massive ice ages that have deposited shallow ice on roughly one-third of the planet.
These layers contain key details about the climate of Mars thousands of years ago, when the ice is thought to have formed from snowfall.
The findings could help researchers understand the thermal models of the planet and the influence of deep-seated volcanic activity.
Khuller added, “If it is dustier, the ice will be darker.”
Background
Planetary scientists have discovered that the exposed water ice at Mars' north pole contains less than 3% dust, a significant reduction from previous estimates of up to 25%. This finding, based on orbital and lander data, was published in a recent analysis.
Planetary scientists have discovered that the exposed water ice at Mars' north pole contains less than 3% dust, a significant reduction from previous estimates of up to 25%, according to a new analysis of orbital and lander data.
What's confirmed
- “We know there is water ice in the area surrounding the north pole of Mars, but there has been widespread disagreement as to how dusty that ice is,” said Dr. Aditya Khuller, a researcher at the University of Washington.
- “By looking at how the brightness changed over time, we figured out that there is a frost that forms in the winter and it’s more dusty,” Dr. Khuller said.
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- Mars has only two small moons, and it “oscillates wildly,” Khuller said, which causes those dramatic ice ages.
- “The fact that Mars and Earth both have these similar layers of water ice and dust is interesting,” Khuller said.
- “Just like a dark T-shirt in the sun makes you warmer, dusty ice gets warmer and vaporizes faster on Mars.” He and lead author Pari Mohan, who recently graduated from UW with a degree in geoscience, didn’t work with any new ice samples.
What's still developing
- The hot spot shows up in tracking data from the Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Odyssey, and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter taken over a period of 16 years.
- According to Brown University postdoctoral researcher Nick Wagner, who is part of Byrne's team, slight changes in the Martian orbit force slight changes in Mars's shape.
- "As Mars travels around the Sun, the Sun’s gravity gently stretches and squeezes the planet," said Wagner.
- Something deep inside Mars has scientists looking for clues to its internal evolution.
- That warm spot may contain information about heating inside the planet and how Mars has changed over its lifetime.
- What the data show are the effects of seasonal tidal forcing as Mars orbits the Sun.
- That upwelling could result in thickening and enhanced magnetization across Mars's southern highlands.
- Planetary scientists learn about Martian ice by studying how it reflects light, as measured by orbiters such as ESA’s Mars Express and NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, as well as by NASA’s Phoenix lander.
- Their results differ sharply from some earlier works: an analysis of Mars Express data from Korolev crater, for example, had implied dust contents of about 15-22% by mass; the new study finds roughly 0.2-0.4% in the top layer for the same observations.
- A dusty layer of frost forms over the ice every winter and disappears in the summer, revealing older, cleaner ice.
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