The latest data from NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander probe, which has just been published in the journal Science , reveals that the Martian North Pole met all the requirements to be "habitable" in the past, especially water , as evidenced by the salts and minerals from the ground and even a layer of ice that still remains buried in the subsoil.
Using his eight-foot-long robotic arm and an instrument called the Icy Soil Acquisition Device , Phoenix took samples of the red planet's icy terrain and studied them in his laboratory. The analyzes carried out reveal that the ice layer of the subsoil of the North Pole of Mars has a thickness of between 5 and 18 centimeters. In addition, scientists have verified that the soil analyzed is alkaline and rich in salts and minerals, such as calcium carbonate or chlorine in the form of perchlorate, a highly soluble salt in water. Both can only have formed in the presence of water.
