VALLES MARINERIS ( Image credit : BASA)
A group of Russian scientists discovered the ideal place to begin the colonization of Mars, through a report published in the Icarus magazine. This area is called Valles Marineris. Which is known among researchers for its cannons.
However, a team of researchers from the Russian Space Research Institute, in the company of colleagues from the European Space Agency, have made a discovery that would completely change the hypotheses that had been held so far about this area of Mars.
The colonization of Mars
Within the Valle Marienris, there is an area called Candor Chaos, which thanks to ESA’s ExoMars TGO probe and Roscomos, managed to obtain important discoveries that reveal a large mass of hydrogen buried just one meter below the surface.
The TGO probe (which derives from the acronym in English Gas Orbital Tracker), was launched in 2016 within the ExoMars program. Same that has managed to detect a mass of hydrogen buried in a layer one meter thick thanks to its FREND instrument (Fine Resolution Epithermal Neutron Detector).
The discovery on Martian land
The FREDN instrument was key to the discovery of water on the planet Mars. This, because, instead of capturing light, the instrument, instead, captures neutrons. In this sense, when Mars receives significant cosmic radiation, it emits electrons in response.
In this way, dry soils emit higher amounts of electrons compared to wet ones. This facilitates FREND’s job in calculating the amount of water found in the soil it inspects.
Analyzing data obtained between May 2018 and February 2021 from the planet Mars, the Russian team discovered a significant amount of hydrogen located in the Candor Chaos region. In this way, it is calculated that on the Martian surface there is approximately 40% water compared to the size of the Netherlands.
However, the work of these scientists has raised doubts and concerns in American academic circles. Well, for some time they have suspected that the Martian dust is riddled with ice, or that there is water attached to the minerals. However, the region that was studied by TGO shows that there are no minerals that contain large amounts of water.