Speaker 1: Welcome to brain stuff. From how stuff works. Hey, they
Speaker 1: are brain stuff, Lauren Vogel bomb here. Mars has large
Speaker 1: deposits of near pure water ice just beneath the surface
Speaker 1: at mid latitudes, a discovery that could have huge implications
Speaker 1: for future human settlement of the Red planet. Astronauts could
Speaker 1: essentially just go there with a bucket and shovel and
Speaker 1: get all the water they need, said Shane burn in
Speaker 1: a press release from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Burne, who
Speaker 1: works at the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory
Speaker 1: in Tucson, co authored a new study using the suite
Speaker 1: of instruments and cameras on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter or
Speaker 1: m r O to uncover this icy find. Buried just
Speaker 1: a few meters under the ground and covered by fused
Speaker 1: rock and dust. These layers of ice were discovered at
Speaker 1: eight sites in eroded scarps or steep hillsides. The most
Speaker 1: exciting thing about these sites is that they're in regions
Speaker 1: that could be accessible to future Mars explorers at to
Speaker 1: fifty eight degrees latitude in the north, othern and southern hemisphere,
Speaker 1: negating the need for traveling to challenging polar latitudes to
Speaker 1: access a frozen water supply. These ice deposits come from
Speaker 1: layers of ancient snow that became buried under rock and
Speaker 1: more snow over time. These deposits have become exposed as
Speaker 1: these scarps eroded. But how did layers of snow become
Speaker 1: deposited at such low latitudes in the first place. Although
Speaker 1: Mars currently exhibits ice and snow on the surface only
Speaker 1: at high latitudes, this wasn't always the case. Mars experienced
Speaker 1: shifts in its climate over the eons as its axis
Speaker 1: of rotation changes. Its axial tilt currently approximates that of Earth's,
Speaker 1: but over the course of hundreds of thousands, and even
Speaker 1: millions of years, mars tilt has varied dramatically, driving global
Speaker 1: climatic shifts. Scientists can therefore use the information recorded in
Speaker 1: these scarps as an ancient geological record of how Mars's
Speaker 1: climate has evolved. Leslie Tempari, m r O, Deputy project
Speaker 1: scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told us, if you
Speaker 1: had a mission at one of these sites, say umpling
Speaker 1: the layers going down the scarp, you could get a
Speaker 1: detailed climate history of Mars. It's part of the whole
Speaker 1: story of what happens to water on Mars over time,
Speaker 1: Where does it go, when does ice accumulate, when does
Speaker 1: it recede. The study, which has been published in the
Speaker 1: journal Science, is a real help to future human Mars
Speaker 1: mission planners. To set up a viable human presence on
Speaker 1: the Martian surface, astronauts will need to harness on site resources.
Speaker 1: It would be wildly prohibitively expensive to bring all the water, fuel,
Speaker 1: and building supplies with them from Earth. Tapping into a
Speaker 1: plentiful supply of near pure water ice will be critical
Speaker 1: for providing drinking water and a fuel resource, not to
Speaker 1: mention irrigation for crops. Previously, scientists have confirmed large deposits
Speaker 1: of subsurface water ice using ground penetrating radar, but the
Speaker 1: information about what the ice is mixed with and the
Speaker 1: quantity of water has been difficult to decipher. Now, by
Speaker 1: studying these scarps, scientists have found that these deposits are
Speaker 1: close to being pure water ice, and through observations by
Speaker 1: orbiting space, we know where to send our astronauts too
Speaker 1: big for water. Today's episode was written by Ian O'Neill
Speaker 1: and produced by Tristan McNeil. For more on this and
Speaker 1: lots of other cool topics, visit our home planet, how
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com.