Recent research from Purdue University, led by the planetary scientist Dr Ali Bramson, has the potential to revolutionize our vision of life on Mars – and our ability to live there. Bramson discovered subsurface ice on Mars whose reservoirs could be crucial to a future human colony.

Water: The Lifeline of Extraterrestrial Life

If ever humans are going to make it to other planets, they will undoubtedly need water, for drinking – but arguably more crucially, for splitting into hydrogen and oxygen, allowing space travelers to use and re-use it becoming fuel for rockets. Transporting water from Earth to other planets is extremely expensive, making in‑situ resources – in this case, subsurface ice – particularly promising as a potential long-term supply of water for space missions.

A Needle in a Martian Haystack

Finding subsurface ice on Mars is no easy feat.

With temperatures and atmospheric pressure both extreme, visually identifying and extracting these buried caches is a daunting task, requiring cutting-edge ingenuity from the team led by Dr Bramson. They scan data from orbiting spacecraft for telltales that ice is lurking below.

Equipped with radar that can penetrate the rocky surface to a depth of some metres, presumably to the level of usable ice, Bramson and Wieczorek intend to blend that information with their computer models to produce contours, showing the relative distribution of ice at depth. This will help determine the locations where ice is most likely and allow some estimation of potential water reserves.

Promising Results in Unexpected Places

Brinson and her colleagues think that Bramson was probably right. Surprisingly, some of the most extensive deposits of ice might not be located at either pole, but actually at mid-latitudes in the northern hemisphere. And unlike at the poles, the mid-latitudes might actually be a better place for humans to visit and even settle: the constant darkness of winter would not shut down regions midway between the poles.

‘The mid-latitudes are temperate and get more sunlight, which is good not only for human habitation but for solar power,’ explained Bramson. As such, scientists note that these areas are prime targets for future exploration and colonisation.

©️ The Rocky Mountain Dispatch LLC. 2024