Posted: Fri, Jun 27, 2003, 8:28 AM ET (1228 GMT)
Planetary scientists analyzing data from NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft said Thursday that they believe the planet has more subsurface water ice in its northern latitudes than the spacecraft previously found in the south. Odyssey's neutron and gamma-ray spectrometers found high concentrations of water in the northern polar regions of the planet once a seasonal layer of carbon dioxide ice sublimated from the surface. In some locations the amount of water ice is 90 percent by volume, according to Igor Mitrofanov, a Russian scientist who is the lead author of a paper published in Friday's issue of Science that discusses the findings. Last year scientists found similar concentrations of water ice below the surface in the southern polar regions of the planet, but had to wait until seasonal ice cap in the northern regions of the planet to disappear before they could probe those regions. In a separate paper to be published in the Journal of Geophysical Research - Planets, scientists combined data from Mars Odyssey and Mars Global Surveyor to conclude that the seasonal dry ice layer has a fluffy texture similar to snow.

Related Links:

•  NASA press release
•  Reuters article
•  BBC article
•  Astrobiology Magazine article