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Discovery of ice lifts hope of sending man to Mars

Science Editor,Steve Connor
Wednesday 29 May 2002 00:00 BST
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A vast underground ocean on Mars was confirmed yesterday by Nasa scientists who described the enormous quantities of ice as "buried treasure".

The Odyssey spacecraft has detected enough frozen water just under the surface of the Red Planet to fill Lake Michigan twice over – but this might be only the tip of an iceberg.

Finding such large amounts of water just under the frozen surface of Mars increases the chances that the planet may have once harboured life. It also makes it easier for a future manned mission, which could use the water for drinking and, with the help of solar power, as rocket fuel for a return journey.

William Boynton, a principal investigator on the Odyssey project at the University of Arizona, Tucson, said that the discovery was "amazing" because of its sheer scale.

"This is the best direct evidence we have of sub-surface water ice on Mars. We were hopeful that we could find evidence of ice, but what we have found is much more ice than we ever expected," Dr Boynton said.

The spacecraft's gamma-ray spectrometer detected vast amounts of hydrogen – which could only mean water – in a large region surrounding the south pole of Mars.

The team also found that the hydrogen-rich regions were located in areas that were known to be very cold and where ice should be stable.

The ice-rich layer of Martian soil is about two feet beneath the surface at 60 degrees south latitude, and gets to within about one foot.

Stephen Saunders, the Odyssey's project scientist at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said: "Mars has surprised us again. The early results from the gamma ray spectrometer team are better than we ever expected.

"In a few months, as we get into Martian summer in the northern hemisphere, it will be exciting to see what lies beneath the cover of carbon dioxide dry-ice as it disappears."

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