Scientists Thought Mars’s North Polar Ice Was 25% Dust. They Were Way Off

When NASA’s Mars Phoenix mission successfully sampled ice from the Martian arctic regions, it made astrobiological history. This sample, along with others that followed, led scientists to realize that Martian ice was buried beneath a layer of dust—although they may have overestimated how dusty it was, new findings suggest.

Using a combination of different datasets, scientists revisited the purported dustiness of Mars’s northern polar region, finding that the top layer of Martian polar ice was roughly 3% dust. This is…