A new study has found that Mars is experiencing the end of Ice Age. A team of scientists at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, have found evidence to suggest that Mars undergoes cyclic climate changes similar to those experienced by Earth.
The team, led by postdoctoral researcher Isaac B. Smith, used radar imaging from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to closely examine the polar ice caps on Mars. They discovered that there was constant movement of ice all over the poles, resulting in increasing ice deposits. This has led them to conclude that Mars is at the end of Ice Age.
In this respect, Mars and Earth are completely different. While on Earth an increase in ice deposits on the pole indicates the beginning of Ice Age, it is the opposite on Mars where Ice Age sees warmer poles with ice deposits at the mid-latitudes of the planet. According to Earth Observatory, this is due to both planets behaving according to the Milankovitch theory, which describes climate changes resulting from the axis, tilt and orbital peculiarities of a planet. Mars undergoes a much greater change (60 degrees) in the angle of its tilt about its axis than does Earth (2 degrees), which causes the Martian poles to receive a greater amount of sunlight and lose its ice deposits during Ice Age.
The study, published in the journal Science, also brings to light evidence of several layers of ice deposited and removed over the years on the poles, pointing to the fact that Mars has seen many ice ages, the most recent one having ended approximately 370,000 years ago. Further research about these and other changes on Mars could prove to be the key to understanding our own, very similar planet's climate in a better way, which is a pressing need of our times.
