The Martian South Pole. A new study in Geophysical Research Letters argues there needs to be an underground source
of heat for liquid water to exist underneath the polar ice cap. Credit: NASA
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Schematic of the case considered in the new study causing a local elevated heat flux beneath Mars’s south polar ice cap.
The schematic shows a magma chamber of diameter D buried at a depth of H (to the center of the chamber) beneath the
putative liquid water, creating an elevated heat flux Q as it cools. Credit: AGU/GRL/Sori and Bramson.
