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Mars polar water is pure: study

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-01-21 10:12

PARIS  – A large ice cap found at Mars' northern pole is "of a very high degree of purity," according to an international study reported on Tuesday by French researchers.

This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image released in 2005 shows Mars. A large ice cap found at Mars' northern pole is "of a very high degree of purity," according to an international study reported on Tuesday by French researchers. [Agencies]

Radar data sent back by the US Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) point to 95 percent purity in this deposit, France's National Institute of Sciences of the Universe (Insu) said in a press release.

The Martian polar regions are believed to hold the equivalent of two to three million cubic kilometres" (0.47-0.72 million cu. miles) of ice, it said.

That makes it roughly 100 times more than the total volume of North America's Great Lakes, which is 22,684 cu. kms (5,439 miles).

The study appears in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, published by the American Geophysical Union.