coondoggie writes “Turns out that the surface of Mars is stiffer and colder than previously thought. New observations from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter indicate that any liquid water that might exist below the planet’s surface and any possible organisms living in that water would be located deeper than scientists had suspected. NASA made the discovery while using the Shallow Radar (SHARAD) instrument on the Orbiter, which revealed long, continuous layers stretching up to 600 miles, or about one-fifth the length of the United States. The radar pictures show a smooth, flat border between the ice cap and the rocky Martian crust, NASA said. On Earth, the weight of a similar stack of ice would cause the planet’s surface to sag. The fact that the Martian surface is not bending means that its strong outer shell, or lithosphere, a combination of its crust and upper mantle, must be very thick and cold.”
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