They announced preliminary findings in March but now have good data confirming large amounts of the water-ice just beneath the surface south of 60 degrees latitude.
Water-ice covers Charon, while Pluto's surface is predominantly nitrogen frost with traces of methane and carbon monoxide ices.
Satellites have long been used to track ice extent (area), but calculating the thickness of the marine floes requires the overflying spacecraft to gauge the difference between the top of the ice surface and the top of the water - a relatively simple calculation then gives the overall volume.
Sequential optical images of high spatial resolution were used for the first time to derive surface ice velocities of Glaciar Upsala, a fast-moving fresh-water calving glacier in southern Patagonia.
Where the ice vanishes entirely, the surface loses its usual highly reflective whiteness - which sends most solar radiation back into space - and is replaced by darker waters instead which absorb more heat.
Data from the Sharad (SHAllow RADar) instrument (on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter), document that some of these glacial-like features, which you find at Mars' mid-latitudes, have a significant volume of ice left below a surface of rock debris.
This has allowed scientists to retrieve information about the Arctic Ocean region's gravity field, its surface circulation, and the thickness of its sea-ice cover.
In the study released Wednesday, researchers suggest extracting the natural gas hydrates with "depressurization" -- a method that involves changing the ice into gas and water at the surface.
One striking sequence shows Endurance buried up to her deck in ice, a tangle of rigging and splintered timbers, every surface thickly covered with hoar-frost.
One theory is that the summer sun melts ice on the surface of the glacier which creates pools of water which then flow into moulins -- narrow tubular shafts in the glacier.
The torpedo-shaped instrument gathers data about the difference between the level of the seawater beneath the ice and the surface of the ice itself.
For example, the bright snow- and ice-covered landscapes of Canada and Siberia during winter reflect most solar radiation straight back into space, keeping the surface cold.
And now the Arctic's upper layers are getting less dense, for several reasons: melting Arctic glaciers, rising surface-water temperatures, increased precipitation and an absence of salt concentrations resulting from sea-ice formation.
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