Looking For Ice On Mars, NASA Updates Search Maps Below Surface

JAKARTA - Just like the moon, the United States Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) is also looking for ice on Mars. This search is supported by a Surface Underwater Ice Mapping (SWIM).

SWIM is a mapping project that has been carried out by NASA since 2017. This project was worked on to find the right location for ice discovery using datasets from various Mars studies.

Previously, this map was developed with image control, radar, thermal mapping, and low resolution spectrometers combined with data. However, the results obtained were not optimal.

Maps cannot directly show buried ice and cannot confirm its existence and quantity. Therefore, NASA stepped up the SWIM project with two high-resolution cameras on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

Data from this MRO kamer is used and combined with the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE). This incorporation was deliberately carried out to give more detailed results concerning the ice line with the equator.

The use of HiRISE seems to bring good results. After being used regularly to study the new crater from a 150-meter-wide meteoroid collision, an ice collection is revealed to be hiding under the surface.

In addition to facilitating mapping in locations with open craters, HiRISE also presents a polygon field in a new mapping. The polygon field is an ice contraction beneath the surface that causes polygonal cracks to soil.

The polygon around the impact crater is an indication of a pile of ice hiding beneath the crater's surface in an ununiform amount. This ice can be more or even less.

The researchers said that ice in various locations at the central latitude of Mars was not uniform. It is not known why this amount of ice is different in each location, but they are investigating it with the SWIM map.