Exposure to sunlight creates telltale patterns in the polar ice cap that change over time, potentially providing insight into the climatic history of the Red Planet.
Ices
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Peeling Back the Layers of the Climate of Mars
A new study ties layers in the polar deposits of Mars to changes in climate driven by orbital variations, constraining accumulation rates and further deciphering the climate history of the Red Planet.
Posted inNews
Ammonia Ice Deposits on Pluto Hint at Recent Cryovolcanism
This discovery is the latest in a growing stack of evidence pointing to the presence of an ammonia-rich water ocean beneath Pluto’s icy crust.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Mapping Subglacial Meltwater Channels
Researchers find that past studies underestimate the friction meltwater channels exert on glaciers by orders of magnitude.
Posted inScience Updates
Updates on Understanding Mars’s Recent and Present-Day Climate
Mars Workshop on Amazonian and Present-day Climate; Lakewood, Colorado, 18–22 June 2018
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Evidence of Regional Deposition in Mars’s South Polar Deposits
Shallow Radar correlation of discrete units in one of the Red Planet’s largest ice reservoirs suggests that its material was emplaced as a single, regional deposit.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Evidence of Extensive Ice Deposits Near Mercury’s South Pole
New radar observations and refined illumination maps reveal uneven water ice deposits twice the size of those found around the planet’s north pole, suggesting the source may be a recent comet impact.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
How Do Gullies Form on Mars?
New orbiter data support an important role for seasonal frost—not liquid water—in the formation of Martian gullies.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Carbon Dioxide Frost May Keep Martian Soil Dusty
Temperature readings acquired from orbit show that Mars's surface gets cold enough at night to allow layers of solid carbon dioxide frost up to several hundred micrometers thick to build up near the equator.