Clays can be a source of Mars 'lakes', here is all you need to know
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Citing evidence collected from a radar instrument aboard the European Space Agency Mars Express orbiter, a team of scientists from Italy suggested that the possibility of subsurface lakes below the ice caps at Mars’ south pole
As per a trio of new studies, the evidence of ‘subsurface lakes’ deep below the ice cap at Mars’ south pole could be due to clay.
Citing evidence collected from a radar instrument aboard the European Space Agency Mars Express orbiter, a team of scientists from Italy suggested that the possibility of subsurface lakes below the ice caps at Mars’ south pole.
As per NASA, the radar signals change when they are reflected off different materials.
After researchers from Italy’s Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica published the paper on lake, about 80 Martian polar scientists met for an international conference in Ushuaia.
There were lots of talks about the subsurface lakes. They also discussed the possibility of brine lowering the freezing point of the water enough to keep it liquid.
Jeffrey Plaut of Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Aditya Khuller, a doctoral student, analyzed 44,000 radar echoes across 15 years of MARSIS data.
They also turned up dozens more bright reflections similar to the 2018 study.
Many of those close signals in areas close to the surface were found, where it should be too cold for water to remain liquid.