Drones Scanning Earth’s Glaciers Are Paving the Way for Future Mars Helicopters

Mars has lots of glaciers located along its mid-latitudes. We’ve known this for years thanks to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s (MRO’s) SHARAD sounder. But, despite all of the excellent data it’s managed to gather, SHARAD doesn’t have high enough resolution to accurately measure the boundary between the glacier itself and the rocky material that has been deposited on top of it over the course of billions of years. A new study, published in the journal JGR Planets, details a potential method of finding that boundary—by using a drone.