Mars may now be a freeze-dry planet, but once upon a time, it was (almost) supposed to be another (almost), with flowing waters that froze in huge icebergs.
Because glaciers and ice sheets on Earth tend to slide and slide, they crawl across the land and create stark geophysical features including linear canyons, inverted ridges, and ridges. Scientists previously believed that glaciers on Mars remained frozen due to the lack of similar features on the Red Planet. ‘, where planetary scientist Anna Grau Galluvray, from Planetology and Geosciences Laboratory University Nantes University In France, a study found that glaciers on Mars are in motion and happen to be very slow, according to the website space.
She said Galofre Degree: “This glacial movement has produced landscapes in northern Europe and North America, while Mars lacks such widespread glacial erosion even in areas where there are other signs of ice spread.”
Instead, the Martian terrain resulting from melting and movement of glaciers is mostly hills and valleys with shallow, undulating channels. Scientists previously hypothesized that Martian glaciers froze directly on Earth when they formed because Mars lacks the most dramatic glacial terrain on Earth.
I created Galofre Degree And her team models identical ice sheets, subjecting one to conditions on Earth and one to conditions on Mars, to see if the ice actually stayed in place.
Scientists discovered that the Earth’s gravity is what causes meltwater to collect under a glacier instead of draining it immediately, and the collected water makes the glacier move faster, something similar to an aquaslide that occurs when cars end up sliding uncontrollably due to a layer of water between Its tires and road, however, the lower gravity on Mars means draining occurs faster.
The research team hypothesized that to push glaciers faster, there must be enough pressure to compensate for the weakening of gravity. Creep deformation is a phenomenon that occurs when both temperature and pressure from the weight of the heavy ice above, known as overpressure, put enough pressure on the ice for it to begin to fall. Deformation On Earth, creeping deformation is not nearly as widespread as the sliding ice that results from melting ice that collects under this ice.
It turns out that glaciers that behave like what the researchers suggest happen on Mars also happen on Earth. In the far north of the Arctic, there are hardly any cuts and pits on the ground beneath some of the glaciers that mark the places where enough meltwater keeps the Ice movement and reveal new features in its wake.