Recent studies show that what was considered water on Mars' cold south pole might be nothing more than a dusty illusion.
According to researchers from the University of Texas in Austin, the south pole of Mars lacks the conditions to preserve water in a liquid form, and the radar reflections are similar to those of volcanic plains.
Bright reflections were discovered under the Martian south pole in 2018. They hypothesized that they saw water, raising the possibility of stable liquid water on the planet's surface.
However, experts refuted the notion in a study, "The Basal Detectability of an Ice-Covered Mars by MARSIS."
The Echus Chasma, one of the largest water source regions on Mars, is pictured from ESA's Mars Express. The data was acquired on September 25, 2005.
Lake Below Mars' South Pole Is Just a Dusty Illusion
According to new research by experts at the University of Texas in Austin, the reflections found on Mars south pole are more likely from volcanic rock buried beneath the ice.
Researchers said the current temperature and pressure on the planet's surface render stable liquid water implausible.
Lead author Cyril Grima, a planetary scientist at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG), said per Independent: "For water to be sustained this close to the surface, you need both a very salty environment and a strong, locally generated heat source, but that doesn't match what we know of this region."
When scientists overlaid an imagined global ice sheet on a radar image of Mars, the south polar illusion vanished. The researchers discovered that the fictitious ice depicted how the Earth might seem if viewed through a mile of ice.
They were able to compare characteristics throughout the whole globe to those found beneath the polar cap due to this. Grima detected dazzling reflections distributed around the globe, similar to those observed near the south pole.
Mineral Deposits on Mars South Pole Possible
Iron-rich lava flows on Earth may leave behind rocks that similarly reflect radar; therefore, this is a good possible explanation. According to other recent investigations of these shimmering mirages, mineral deposits in dry riverbeds are another possibility.
Isaac Smith, a Mars geophysicist at York University in Canada, said the brilliant radar fingerprints are a type of clay formed when rock erodes in water. Smith discovered in a 2021 investigation that Earth-based clays emit strong radar reflections similar to those mistaken for water in 2018.
"I think the beauty of Grima's finding is that while it knocks down the idea, there might be liquid water under the planet's south pole today, it also gives us really precise places to go look for evidence of ancient lakes and riverbeds and test hypotheses about the wider drying out of Mars' climate over billions of years," he said per Cosmos Magazine.
The research, according to Smith, is a sobering lesson in the scientific procedure that is as applicable to Earth as it is to Mars.
He said that science isn't always correct the first time, which is especially true in planetary research because we're looking at locations no one has ever been and depending on sensors that perceive things from afar.
Grima and Smith are now working together on a proposal to use radar to identify water on Mars as a resource for potential human landing sites and to look for indications of a previous life.
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