{"id":181892,"date":"2024-02-02T10:25:21","date_gmt":"2024-02-02T16:25:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/02\/mars-express-finds-evidence-of-large-water-deposit-at-the-medusae-fossae-formation"},"modified":"2024-02-02T10:25:21","modified_gmt":"2024-02-02T16:25:21","slug":"mars-express-finds-evidence-of-large-water-deposit-at-the-medusae-fossae-formation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/02\/mars-express-finds-evidence-of-large-water-deposit-at-the-medusae-fossae-formation","title":{"rendered":"Mars Express finds Evidence of Large Water Deposit at the Medusae Fossae Formation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/mars-express-finds-evidence-of-large-water-deposit-at-the-medusae-fossae-formation.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Windswept piles of dust, or layers of ice? ESA\u2019s Mars Express has revisited one of Mars\u2019s most mysterious features to clarify its composition. Its findings suggest layers of water ice stretching several kilometers below ground\u2014the most water ever found in this part of the planet.<\/p>\n<p>Over 15 years ago, Mars Express studied the Medusae Fossae Formation (MFF), revealing massive deposits up to 2.5 km deep. From these early observations, it was unclear what the deposits were made of\u2014but new research now has an answer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve explored the MFF again using newer data from Mars Express\u2019s MARSIS radar, and found the deposits to be even thicker than we thought: up to 3.7 km thick,\u201d says Thomas Watters of the Smithsonian Institution, U.S., lead author of both the new research, published in Geophysical Research Letters, and the initial 2007 study. \u201cExcitingly, the radar signals match what we\u2019d expect to see from layered ice, and are similar to the signals we see from Mars\u2019s polar caps, which we know to be very ice rich.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Windswept piles of dust, or layers of ice? ESA\u2019s Mars Express has revisited one of Mars\u2019s most mysterious features to clarify its composition. Its findings suggest layers of water ice stretching several kilometers below ground\u2014the most water ever found in this part of the planet. Over 15 years ago, Mars Express studied the Medusae Fossae [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":707,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/707"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181892\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}