Scientists suspect Mars’ surface is littered with HUGE sinkholes caused by widespread subterranean ice – RT World News

A team of researchers related to NASA’s quest for extraterrestrial intelligence has developed a new theory about the displacement of sand visible over Mars, with possible consequences for future human colonization.

Led by SETI Senior Research Scientist Janice Bishop, the scientists ‘new theory indicates that a thin layer of water ice exists just below the surface of much of Mars’ arid landscape.

This ice heats up under sunlight and loosens the superficial debris, making it easy to resolve the storms of the Red Planet.

Underground interactions between water ice, chlorine salts and sulfates then create large sinkholes under this degradation, which adds even more challenges to the human habitation of the already challenging colony claimant by turning the landscape into large, dusty ‘swamps’ of the sinkhole.

High-resolution experimental data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter confirmed that the RSL occurs on slopes against the sun.

The team then performed laboratory experiments with Mars soil analogues taken from some of the earth’s least hospitable areas, such as the Atacama Desert and Antarctica, to see what effect chlorine salts and sulfates would have on their integrity, even at low temperatures. which is on the surface of Mars.

The soil certainly changed to smooth ice almost -50 degrees Celsius, which made way for more free ice between -40 and -20 degrees Celsius.

The research builds on earlier findings about the widespread presence of water ice on the Martian surface, but also indicates that the planet is still active and evolving, offering new challenges and new opportunities for future human colonists and astrobiologists here on earth.

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