Did You Know Mars Had Water Long Ago, But Where Did The Liquid Go?

Scientist have a new hypothesis on the phenomenon that led to Mars, which was once believed to be full of water bodies, to lose all its water and turning it to a desolate landscape.

Researchers has revealed that about 30% and 99% of Mars Water may now be trapped within minerals in the Martian crust and countered the previous notion that it simply evaporated into space by escaping through the upper atmosphere.

California Institute of Technology PhD candidate Eva Scheller, lead author of the NASA-funded study published on Tuesday in the journal Science said that the majority of Mars’ water was lost to the crust. The water was lost by 3 billion years ago. That means Mars has been a dry planet for the past 3 billion years.

Earlier, scientists revealed that Mars may have contained water on its surface equivalent in volume to half of the Atlantic Ocean which would have been enough to cover the entire planet with water perhaps up to nearly a mile (1.5 km) deep.

Water is constituted of one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms. The amount of deuterium, a hydrogen isotope, present on Mars provided some clues about the water loss. The deuterium which is also known as heavy hydrogen have a proton and a neutron within the atomic nucleus instead of one single proton like most hydrogen atoms.

Water loss through the atmosphere, according to scientists, would leave behind a very large ratio of deuterium compared to ordinary hydrogen.

The researchers came to this conclusion after using a model that simulated the hydrogen isotope composition and water volume of Mars.

Explaining the model, Scheller said, “There are three key processes within this model: water input from volcanism, water loss to space and water loss to the crust. Through this model and matching it to our hydrogen isotope data set, we can calculate how much water was lost to space and to crust.”

The researchers believes that most of the  water on the Red Planer did not actually leave the planet, but were trapped in various minerals that contain water as part of their mineral structure such as clays and sulfates.

Although the trapped water is plentiful when taken as a whole, but it may not be enough of a resource for future astronaut missions to Mars.

Scheller said that the amount of water within a rock or mineral is very small. You would have to heat a lot of rock to release water in an appreciable amount.”

(Source: The Indian Express)