Newly found stratified ice deposits in craters throughout Mars' southern hemisphere shed light on how the planet's orientation shaped its environment during the last 4 million years.
The findings aid scientists in determining what factors influenced the Red Planet's previous climate, which is crucial for estimating when it was livable.
Researchers published the study titled "Orbital Forcing of Martian Climate Revealed in a South Polar Outlier Ice Deposit" in the American Geophysical Union's journal Geophysical Research Letters.
TOPSHOT - A couple of astronauts from a team from Europe and Israel walk in spacesuits during a training mission for planet Mars at a site that simulates an off-site station at the Ramon Crater in Mitzpe Ramon in Israel's southern Negev desert on October 10, 2021. - Six astronauts from Portugal, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, and Israel will be cut off from the world for a month, from October 4-31, only able leave their habitat in spacesuits as if they were on Mars. Their mission, the AMADEE-20 Mars simulation, will be carried out in a Martian terrestrial analog and directed by a dedicated Mission Support Center in Austria, to conduct experiments ahead of future human and robotic Mars exploration missions.
Martian Ice Caps Stun Red Planet's Climate Specialists
The polar ice caps, which cover hundreds of kilometers, have drawn Martian climate specialists' attention. However, Phys.org said these deposits are ancient and may have lost ice over time, resulting in the loss of precise features needed to securely establish links between the planet's orientation and motion and its climate.
Ice mounds in craters, which are just tens of kilometers broad but considerably younger and presumably less intricate, were chosen by researchers. After examining most of the southern hemisphere, they found Burroughs crater, which is 74 kilometers wide and has unusually well-preserved" strata visible from NASA HiRISE data.
Over the previous 4 to 5 million years, the researchers investigated the layers' thicknesses and shapes and discovered that they had astonishingly comparable patterns to two fundamental Martian orbital dynamics - the tilt of the planet's axis and orbital precession.
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With unparalleled precision and certainty, the new study links these ice layers to the tilt of Mars' axis and its orbital precession, or how the planet's elliptical orbit revolves around the sun over time.
Scientists can now see how Mars' temperature has altered through time, thanks to the results. Establishing these climate-orbit correlations allows scientists to better understand Martian climate in the past, which might help pinpoint eras of possible habitability.
Martian Lab
Understanding the links between orbital cycles and climate is crucial for both Martian history and Earth's complicated climate dynamics. Because many of the complicated aspects present on Earth-biology, tectonics-are minor on Mars. Researchers said per Science Daily that Mars is an ideal laboratory for researching orbital influences on climate." For scientists, the entire world effectively isolates the variable.
Smaller ice formations may not always have clear, visible layers near the surface. Some may be tucked down inside the mounds. The ultimate aim, according to Sori, is to sample ice cores like scientists do on Earth, but Mars rovers lack that capability right now.
Instead, scientists can utilize ground-penetrating radar data to "look into" the ice and check for layers, ensuring that visible layers extend throughout the deposit. It's an essential quality-control step in this research, and the technology might aid future investigations of Martian ice without apparent layers.
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