Lynn Carter

And so what Allie did was take the profiles of these craters and match the depths here and look at the depth here.

And she was able to demonstrate that the most likely scenario is that this is an ice-rich layer in the surface and that why you're seeing this interface here is because there's an ice-rich layer on top of probably lava flows or basalt in the normal Mars surface composition.

And so then after that, she can actually map out that whole region and see how extensive is that region that we think is ice.

And it's actually pretty extensive.

So this is a map of Mars, longitude and latitude.

And this is the region where she sees that reflector, which is a pretty big area.

I mean, you can see it extends over, you know,

15 degrees of latitude, or longitude, rather.

And then other people have found other ones.

So Cassie Sturman, who's at Texas, found another one that's in a different part of mid-latitudes.

But you'll notice, again, it's high 40s to 50 degrees, the same as this.

So these are on those Northern Plains of Mars.

And so the radars turned up these deposits that are ice sheets.

And so now both of these locations are places where people are thinking about sending future robotic missions or even SpaceX is really interested because they want to have a colony on Mars.

And of course, if you're gonna do that, then you need a source of water and a source of ice.

And so this is a place where we think there's pretty near surface ice that you could go and dig up and excavate and mine.

NASA's interested in this too.

I think they're hoping that we'll find evidence of ice at even lower latitudes because it's just easier, everything is easier with the seasons and the temperature when you go to even lower latitudes than the mid 40s.

But SpaceX is kind of like, whatever.

This is good enough for us.