NASA’s InSight Mars lander found surprisingly little underground ice

There is plenty of ice and watery minerals underground at the poles of Mars, but NASA’s InSight lander found almost none at the equator, leaving scientists wondering where the water went

Space 16 August 2022

The surface of Mars

NASA/ZUMA Press Wire

The Martian equator is surprisingly bereft of ice. Researchers used data from NASA’s Mars InSight lander to search for underground ice and natural mineral cements that form when water seeps underground, and they found very little evidence for either – which might make hunting for signs of past life on Mars even tougher.

InSight’s main scientific instrument is its seismometer, which measures seismic waves rattling through the ground. These waves move at different speeds depending on the material they are propagating through – the denser the material, …

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