Mars has vast glaciers hidden under aprons of rocky debris near mid-latitude mountains, a new study confirms, pointing to a new and large potential reservoir of life-supporting water on the planet.
These mounds of ice exist at much lower latitudes than any ice previously found on the red planet.
“Altogether, these glaciers almost certainly represent the largest reservoir of water ice on Mars that’s not in the polar caps,” said John Holt of the University of Texas at Austin and the main author of the study. “Just one of the features we examined is three times larger than the city of Los Angeles and up to one-half-mile thick, and there are many more.”