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The probe found huge supplies of water in the Martian canyons

Valles Marineris is a remarkable geological formation – the largest system of canyons in the solar system. This unique Martian surprised astronomers with a new finding: less than a meter below its surface is water.

Water is key to the settlement of Mars. And not just for drinking. You can break it down into oxygen and hydrogen by electrocatalysis. Oxygen is used for respiration and hydrogen can serve as fuel.

Humanity has long known about the vital water on the surface of the red planet. We first discovered white caps on Mars poles, made of ice. And a few years ago, data from the Mars Express spacecraft suggested that water on Mars could be found in other areas, but up to several kilometers below the surface.

However, new data from the European spacecraft Trace Gas Orbiter, which is a joint work of the European space agency ESA and Russian Roscosmos, surprised astronomers – they warned that the water probably occurs in the region of the Martian equator, even close to the surface, at a depth of less than one meter.

Surprise in the canyon

At the same time, astronomers assumed that water could not occur on the surface, but also just below it, at the equator. Simply because there are high temperatures and low atmospheric pressure. However, the Trace Gas Orbiter, whose main task is to search for trace gases in Mars’ atmosphere, detected hydrogen just below the surface in the equatorial Valles Marineris crater system.

The spacecraft has identified hydrogen using one of its instruments, the Russian instrument FREND, which observes neutrons emitted from the surface of Mars. This allows it to see the hydrogen content of the soil. From the presence of hydrogen, scientists logically infer water.

Mars with the Valles Marineris area (center of image). The image consists of 102 images taken by the Viking Orbiter spacecraft flying 2,500 kilometers above the planet’s surface. | source:
Profimedia

The principle of this method of finding water is simple: When energy particles arrive from space, they hit the surface. This creates neutrons. Wetter rocks radiate more than dry ones, so it is possible to deduce from the amount of radiated neutrons how much water is in the rock.

Valles Marineris (also the Mariner Valley after the American Mariner 9 probe that discovered it) is the largest known system of canyons on Mars, but also in the solar system. The total length of the canyons is 4000 kilometers. The canyons were probably formed by a combination of volcanic activity and surface layer stress. Running water may have been involved in shaping their profile.

“FREND has revealed a large area of ​​unusually large amounts of hydrogen in the colossal system of the Valles Marineris canyons. If the hydrogen we see is bound to water molecules, which can be assumed, up to forty percent of the soil near the surface is water, ”the scientific journal quotes Science Alert physicist Igor Mitrofanov of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who participated in the project and led a study published on the web Icarus.

According to scientists, the area with a high hydrogen content covers an area of ​​over 40,000 square kilometers, which is close to the area of ​​the Czech regions.

“This discovery is a great first step, but we need more data to find out exactly what form the water is in,” said Håkan Svedhem of ESA, one of the study’s co-authors.

Shall we land there?

However, the study shows that the water at the bottom of the craters will most likely take the form of ice trapped in the rocks, similar to permafrost on Earth. However, it is a mystery why this frozen water does not evaporate. Pressure and temperature conditions at the equator of Mars should prevent the formation of such water reserves.

It is possible that water is being replenished from an underground reservoir. Its existence can be helped by the angle and orientation of steep slopes.

In any case, the new discovery makes the canyons in Valles Marineris a promising place for astronauts to land.

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