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Shortly after Mars Express began scanning the surface of Mars with radar, in 2005, it detected unusually bright reflections from the base of the south polar ice cap. After a decade of studying those reflections, the radar instrument team announced a likely cause: a shallow lake of briny liquid water.
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Today, however, that idea has some competition. Other teams have suggested clays, saline ices, and even volcanic rock as the source of the reflections. They say that conditions below the ice cap (known as SPLD—south polar layered deposits) are much too cold for water to remain in liquid form, requiring underground heating more intense than seen anywhere else on Mars. And even if there’s more heat than expected, there aren’t enough salts to lower the freezing temperature of water to a reasonable level.
“This is certainly what makes science fun,” said David Stillman, a researcher at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colo., who did laboratory work with the prowater research group. “You have these little disputes over the different assumptions people are making. We’re working through it to come to the right answer.”
—Damond Benningfield (damond5916@att.net), Science Writer
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