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Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has made a

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fortuitous discovery we found water

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somewhat closer to the equator than we

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were expecting to see it we discovered

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several new impact craters that dredged

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up or excavated ice from below the

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surface these craters were found between

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about 45 and 55 degrees north so that's

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the latitude about Paris

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the context camera team detects new

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impacts by examining before and after

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images of certain portion of the surface

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and then looking for changes usually

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what they see is the dark mark that the

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impact is left on the surface then the

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high-resolution camera the hi-rise

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camera follows up on that observation

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when high-res went in and took an image

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of these small craters they saw this

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very bright blue material that was

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poking out from the bottom of these

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craters and it looked a lot like water

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ice so they took this image using their

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spectrometer saw that in one of the five

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there was in fact a signature of ice

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high rise to take a series of images

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over several hundred days and what they

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were actually able to do is wash how the

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ice disappears over time so you take the

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styrofoam lid off your cooler here on

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earth that that eye starts to melt front

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of Mars it just turns into water vapor

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and sure enough it faded away like you

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would expect water ice to fade away so

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we have an idea now of how how much

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water was available in the Martian

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atmosphere in the recent past based on

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where we see ice in the subsurface today

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one of the great ironies about this

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discovery is that several of these

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craters were found in the vicinity of

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one of the Viking landers and that

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lander had an arm that dug down into the

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soil looking for ice and what we

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realized from looking at the

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distribution of ice from these craters

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is that if that lander had gone down six

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inches deeper it should have found ice

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it just stopped inches short of where it

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could have found ice

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I think we're the things that's really

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interesting about this is that it gives

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us a new window into the water story on

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Mars know the whole Mars program has

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been following the water and this is our

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first insight into how water and climate

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have changed on Mars over the last 10

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200,000 years it gives us another piece