This is the Korolev, a frozen crater found on Mars

The Mars Ekpress orbiter of the European Space Agency (ESA after an acronym in English) captured images of a crater of ice that exists Marsinvited Королев, which is full of water ice. On December 20, 2018, ESA distributed images of Korolev on its website.

The Королевский кратер named after the Ukrainian Sergei Korolevu, was considered the father of Soviet space technology, located near the northern half of Mars, measuring 82 kilometers in diameter and having a layer of 1.8 kilometers thick, reports portal ABC of Spain.

Королев it has been frozen all year round due to a phenomenon called "castle iceAnd this happens because in the depths of the bottom of the crater there is ice that looks like a trap. "The air that cools down and descends there, which creates a layer of cold air on the ice of the bottom," explains ESA. This layer of cold air protects the ice from the bottom of the crater, so it does not heat up or thaws and therefore remains frozen.

It's not the first time it is red planet Surpasses with your own geography. In July 2018, a lake of liquid salt water was found under ice South Pole. According to the data, the lake is under 1.5 kilometers of ice, extends some 20 kilometers and has a thickness of only one meter. It is known that the water is salty, because this is the only way to explain how the water remains at the temperatures supported by Mars and range between -20 and -70 degrees Celsius.

The Red Planet has a frozen crater on the North Pole. Photo: ESA

Investigations conducted ESA in Mars have a goal to determine whether there was a life at some point in time. The region where the crater is located Корелев "was also interesting for other missions, including the program EkoMars.

Images of the crater were shot by a high-resolution camera (HRSC) of Mars Ekpress, the first European inter-bank mission launched on June 2 this yearor 2003.