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"that are a bit outdated now due to scientific discoveries, like finding the polar caps are lousy with water ice"

They are? The north cap has more than 800,000 cubic kilometers of water in it. Not much compared to Earth, but in space terms that seems pretty abundant to me.

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Lousy is used in this sense to mean "full of".

Never seen it used like that but it's (somewhat) correct usage

lousy

1. very poor or bad; disgusting. "the service is usually lousy"

2. infested with lice; teeming with (something regarded as bad or undesirable). "the town is lousy with tourists"

What Quinner said lousy like 'lousy with lice' (infested with lice).

From memory the Northern cap alone would cover Mars with something like 14 inches (it's close to 15 I think) of water :)

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