Hidden Water in Mars’ Grand Canyon discovered by ExoMars Gas Orbiter

On December 15, 2021 ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (ESA) published scientific material to declare detection of significant amounts of water at the heart of Mars’ dramatic canyon system, Valles Marineris (Grand Canyon).

The newly discovered volume of water is hiding under the surface of Mars, and was detected by the Trace Gas Orbiter, a mission in its first stage under the guidance of the ESA-Roscosmos project dubbed ExoMars.

Gas Orbiter revealed an area with an unusually large amount of hydrogen in the colossal Valles Marineris canyon system: assuming the hydrogen we see is bound into water molecules, as much as 40% of the near-surface material in this region appears to be water.

Igor Mitrofanov, the Russian Academy of Science’s lead investigator of the Space Research Institute, presented this discovery in the ESA press release.

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