Gelo em Marte!

"Photographs taken four days apart show dice-size particles of material disappear from a shallow trench dug by the Phoenix Mars Lander. The only logical explanation is that the material was ice that vaporized over the four day time span. In other shallow trenches a hard layer was uncovered. Scientists suspect that it is an ice layer.

An objective of the Phoenix Mars Lander mission is to search for ice (frozen water) in the shallow subsurface of Mars. Finding ice in the Martian soil could provide important information on the chemical processes that might occur below the surface or even on the existence of subsurface life.

On Earth, soil moisture and ground water play important roles in the mobilization and transport of dissolved materials, the formation of mineral deposits and sustaining subsurface life. It is reasonable to assume that these same processes could operate beneath the surface of Mars."

NASA's Release

Crédito da imagem: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Texas A&M

Saber mais aqui