Think about the size of New Mexico for a moment, and the amount of water that would fit in the state’s area. Taking that mental image to another world – there’s more water in one region on Mars than the area of that state!

From its orbit around Mars, a NASA spacecraft has discovered a massive amount of water that is frozen under plains on the red planet.

Here, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, or MRO, has found almost as much water as there is in Lake Superior.

The view below was taken from the spacecraft. It has been vertically exaggerated and shows scalloped depressions which caused researchers to investigate if the region had buried ice.

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

What kind of instrument did MRO use to learn of the buried ice? It used a radar called Shallow Radar (SHARAD) that penetrated the ground. The instrument is used to look for water, either liquid or frozen, in the crust’s first few hundreds of feet.

The area examined is part of the Utopia Planitia region. More than 600 passes were conducted over the region.

How thick are are the deposits? They range from around 260 feet to around 560 feet. Water ice makes up between 50 to 85 percent of the deposits and is mixed with dust or particles that are larger and rocky.

By being covered with soil, the deposit in Utopia is protected from the atmosphere and does not become water vapor. The covering of soil ranges from about 3 to 33 feet.

Mars has a lot of water ice at its poles today. During a cycle of about 120,000 years, the axial tilt of the planet changes by an amount almost double what it is today. This heats the poles and causes ice to be present around the middle latitudes.

Even though this is a large water ice deposit, it’s less than one percent of all of the water ice known on Mars today! When astronauts are exploring Mars, water will be essential, and areas with deposits near the planet’s surface are being looked into as usable resources for them.

Learn more about Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter at NASA.gov.