Addressing
the SYFY WIRE Aditya Kumar Khuller stated. “We
do not believe that the bright subsurface reflectors represent liquid water,
because it would require anomalously high amounts of heat to allow liquid water
to be stable at these locations.”
“In addition, there are some places
where the bright reflectors extend close to the surface, where it is too cold
for even brines (saturated sodium salt solution) to be stable in liquid form,”
added Khuller.
In order to
support their new theory, the researchers need similar condition that is the
extreme cold temperature that exists on the south pole of Mars, this was done
by Issac Smith of York University in Canada, who used a smectite (a clay
mineral) sample from earth to demonstrate the hypothesis.
Smith
immersed the smectite sample in liquid nitrogen (which has a temperature of
-196 degree Celsius, a cryogenic liquid used for rapid cooling/freezing) to
freeze them to -58 degrees Fahrenheit or -50 degree Celsius, thus roughly
recreating the freezing environment on the south polar caps of Mars. He then evaluated
the interactions with radar signals and it approximately matched the actual
signals from the MARSIS observations.
Mars is rich
in smectite according to Smith. Covering roughly about half the red planet, largely
around the southern hemisphere. This key note, tallied with the data from the mud’s
low-temperature; radar properties, led to believe that smectites are the most probable
explanation behind the mysterious bright radar signals.
