There was once a message about Mars that blew up the circle of friends of many netizens, igniting people's curiosity about Mars, because this is not ordinary news, but a major discovery about Mars exploration, a huge underground lake was found under the south pole of Mars, and a large amount of liquid water was stored in the lake.
This is a very remarkable new discovery, water is the source of life, any life body is inseparable from water, the existence of liquid water lakes on Mars further illustrates the possibility of life before Mars, in addition, human planning to colonize Mars in 2030, whether the most critical material for successful colonization of Mars is also water.
But now that a new study says that the subsurface lake at the south pole of Mars is nothing more than an illusion, it doesn't actually exist, so what is white in the radar image? Let's first review the mars discovery that blew up the circle of friends, and then answer this question.
In 2018, the European Space Agency announced a major news about Mars, which said that by collating the data of the Mars Express probe, the Italian space agency found that there was an underground lake hidden under the South Pole glacier of Mars, which was located 1.6 kilometers underground, with a diameter of up to 20 kilometers, and contained a large amount of liquid water.
Although Mars rovers have repeatedly found "solid water" in the form of ice on Mars, liquid water in the form of liquid lakes is the first time that, according to radar maps taken by mars Express, underground lakes hidden under the glaciers of mars antarctica are shown in bright white, and white is the characteristic of liquid water.
If humans want to realize the dream of Martian colonization, they must first find sufficient water on Mars, because the journey to Mars is too far away, it takes about 6 months, and every 24 months there is a "Mars launch window", and only when Mars is close to Earth, we can launch spacecraft.
The new study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters on January 24, 2022, said that the underground lake at the South Pole of Mars does not exist, and that the presence of a large amount of liquid water discovered by THE Italian Space Agency may be just an illusion, similar to the mirage phenomenon in the desert, but it does not exist.
The new study, from the University of Texas at Austin, found that the bright white shown in the Mars Express radar image was the same color as the reflection of the volcanic plains, coupled with the unusually cold and dry South Pole of Mars, it is unlikely that there will be a liquid water lake, so the conclusion that "the Underground Lake of the South Pole of Mars does not exist" is concluded.
It can be seen that the bright white shown in the radar image is not liquid water, but a volcanic plain covered by ice. The new research is indeed not a lip service, although there was a large amount of liquid water on the surface of ancient Mars, but after the temperature was out of control, this water has long been evaporated.
Martian lakes have dried up for hundreds of millions of years, coupled with the low temperature of minus 10 ° C on the surface of Mars, even if some water is surviving, it has long been ice cubes, how can it exist in liquid state? So, the martian underground lake may really not exist, and the white in the radar map is nothing more than a volcanic plain.
However, some scientists believe that if there is really a liquid water lake on Mars, then there must be at least two conditions, one is the long-term thermal energy of heating the lake water, and the other is that the water contains so many minerals that it can exist in liquid form, but this is almost impossible.
There is no lake on Mars, which may disappoint many people, and even lose confidence in the Martian colonists in 2030, there is not even water on Mars, we spend so much manpower, material resources and financial resources to colonize this barren planet, and back up human beings, is it worth it? Interesting and informative scientific content, please pay attention to the only WeChat public account: Interesting Exploration