Scientists, in hunt for water ice, spot Everest-size hidden volcano on Mars

Taking the ongoing research on the Martian land to the next level, scientists have not spotted a massive and oddly shaped volcano - which is bigger than Mount Everest - on the surface of the planet.

The volcano is said to have been hiding for decades in plain sight. On March 13, lead author of the research and Mars Institute Chairman Dr Pascal Lee announced the new volcano spotted on Mars at the 55th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas, which sent waves across the planetary sciences community.

The volcano identified by Lee and Sourabh Shubham, who is a doctoral student of geology at the University of Maryland, is located in the Noctis Labyrinthus region of Mars. This is terrain close to the equator and has a web of canyons.

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For years, scientists have failed to see the volcano in the “Labyrinth of Night” despite multiple satellite observations since it does not tower over the landscape which surrounds it, said Lee.

“It’s also deeply eroded, eaten up and collapsed by erosion to the point that unless you’re really looking for a volcano, you would be really hard-pressed to spot it very quickly,” he said while speaking to CNN.

If the spotting of the volcano is correct, the new finding can have major implications for Martian geology's understanding.

Scientist hopes hidden volcano may help find water ice, life

Lee said that he is hopeful the discovery of the volcano will help future exploratory missions in searching for signs of water ice or life.

The efforts of the research team initially led to a study which was presented in March 2023 and stated that the Noctis Labyrinthus region is filled with massive glaciers which are covered in salt deposits.

After that, Lee and Shubham investigated the data collected by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and tried to find whether water might still be frozen under the salt.

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The find for water ice is important since this can be used to sustain human exploration on Mars and also convert it into rocket fuel.

Lee, while studying the landscape, said that he was struck by “this little lava flow next to the glacier.”

"The lava hadn’t yet been fully oxidised, a process that would turn it the same muddy orange hue as the surrounding surface," said Lee, as reported by CNN.

This hinted that the lava is likely to be fresh which was the first hint that an undetected volcano is lurking nearby.

“We started looking at the landscape carefully. And sure enough, when we examined the high points of this region, we noticed that they formed an arc," said Lee.

(With inputs from agencies)