NASA's Office of Space Science has selected a group of University of Colorado at Boulder researchers to spend three years mapping the polar ice on Mars using satellite data. The scientists will apply remote-sensing techniques to study the Mars data and help them to both identify the surface composition of Mars' polar ice and plot its perimeters. There used to be a lot of liquid water on Mars, but not any longer. We want to know what has caused a planet relatively similar to ours to change so much, and how and why it evolved.
Ice provides a long-term archive of climate change.
Although Nolin said distinctions between Mars ice and Earth ice will influence the study, both planets have large polar ice caps that play a role in their hydrological cycles, temperature gradients and atmospheric circulation. The northern ice cap on Mars is mainly fresh water, but the southern ice cap is thought to be almost entirely composed of frozen carbon dioxide. The lower temperatures on Mars mean that the poles experience fewer seasonal changes, but still experience changes in frost-covered areas. Ice on Mars extends to lower latitudes than ice on Earth and there is probably more frozen ground on Mars than on Earth, Nolin said. In addition to the presence of carbon dioxide ice on Mars, the substantial amount of dust in the Martian atmosphere and within the ice caps indicates that Martian ice differs greatly from Earth's polar ice and presents the greatest challenge in studying Martian ice.