Mars Might Have Lost its Water Quickly - Universe Today
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Mars is an arid place, and aside from a tiny amount of water vapour in the atmosphere, all water exists as ice. But it wasn’t always this arid. Evidence of the planet’s past wet chapter dots the surface. Paleolakes like Jezero Crater, soon to be explored by NASA’s Perseverance Rover, provide stark evidence of Mars’ ancient past. But what happened to all that water?
A new study says that Mars lost its atmosphere and water relatively quickly. Within a short period of time, geologically speaking, all that water disappeared, aided by dust storms.
The new study’s title is “Hydrogen escape from Mars is driven by seasonal and dust storm transport of water.” The lead author is Shane Stone, a former laboratory chemist who is now a graduate student in the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. The paper is published in the journal Science.
Global dust storms play a critical role in water loss. During one of those mammoth storms, up to 20 times more water can be carried into the upper atmosphere. As a press release accompanying the study says, one global dust storm of 45 days can transport as much water vapour into the upper atmosphere as during a regular storm-free Martian year of 687 Earth days.
