Odd materials recently found on Mars have planetary scientists scratching their heads.
That’s because the materials were spotted at the red planet’s equator—but they appear to contain a large amount of water like that previously seen only at the Martian poles. The finding is based on new high-resolution radar data from the Martian subsurface, which show similarities between the properties of deposits on a hilly equatorial formation called Medusae Fossae and the sediments at the ice-rich poles.