Layers Of Ice Visible In This Stunning Image Of Mars

Fresh photos based on data from the Mars Express mission show ice and dust piling up on the Martian surface like a layer cake.

In Utopia Planitia, a region approximately twice the size of Earth's Sahara Desert, the European Space Agency (ESA) mission displays so-called "mantle deposits" of ice and dust. Utopia is one of Mars' three primary basins, and it contains a significant amount of ice. (The plain also happens to be where China's Zhurong rover landed.)

According to ESA officials, these depositions were blown across the Martian surface by wind, rain, or similar processes; in fact, the depositions spotted at Utopia Planitia likely came in more than 10 million years ago, when Mars had a more tilted rotational axis that allowed snow to fall on a regular basis. All that remains of the snow today is the ice and dust that the precipitation brought with it.

The second-largest crater in the image, visible at left in the top image, contains so-called "brain terrain," which is commonly linked with frozen debris and is termed because the ridges resemble the outer surface of a human brain.

According to ESA, brain terrain is found near the border of Mars' lower, northern plains and the southern highlands.

A dark-colored region where the ground is compressing under the frozen load, as well as numerous circular depressions formed as ground ice melted or turned to gas, forcing the surface to collapse, are also visible in the image.

Since the spacecraft began science operations in 2004, the ESA webpage about the project notes, "Mars Express has found abundant evidence of water."

"Key discoveries include the presence of minerals that form only in the presence of water, the detection of water-ice deposits underground, and evidence to suggest volcanism on Mars may have persisted until recent times," ESA said on the mission webpage.

The European Space Agency's Mars Express mission is a space exploration mission. The Mars Express project is the agency's first planetary endeavor, and it is exploring the planet Mars, like its partners in NASA and the space agencies of China and the UAE. The term "express" was originally used to describe the speed and efficiency with which the spacecraft was developed and manufactured.

ESA officials said in a statement that studying the frozen layers of Utopia Planitia could provide further information about the basin's complex past, as scientists believe it was produced by the deposition of sediments, lavas, and volatile substances (such as water or hydrogen).