Loading...

JPL is finally at least back up to posting some bulletins for me to share with you guys. I've had to dig for them for the last month or so with the government shutdown. JPL was affected by that as well. But they're finally back up to posting some bulletins for me to share with you guys. This one dated November 25th. That's today from JPL. NASA orbiter shines new light on long running Martian mystery. Results from an enhanced radar technique have demonstrated improvement to subsurface observations of Mars. NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, or MRO, has revisited and raised new questions about a mysterious feature buried beneath thousands of feet of ice at the Red Planet's South Pole. In a recent study, researchers conclude data obtained using an innovative radar technique that an area on Mars suspected of being an underground lake is more likely to be a layer of rock and dust. The 2018 discovery of the suspected lake's pottery of scientific activity as water is closely linked with the lake system. While the latest findings indicate this feature is not a lake below the Martian surface, it does suggest that the same radar technique could be used to check for subsurface resources elsewhere on Mars, supporting future explorers. The paper published in Geophysical Research Letters on November 17th was led by two of MRO's shallow radar, SHERAD instrument scientists Gareth Morgan and Ben Woodsy, who were based at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona and Lakewood, Colorado, respectively. The observations were made by MRO with a special maneuver that rolls the spacecraft 120 degrees. Doing so enhances the power of the SHERAD. Enabling the radar's signal to penetrate deeper underground provides a clearer image of the surface. These very large rolls have proved so effective that scientists are eager to use them at previously observed sites where buried ice might exist.