Posted on 03/19/2021 11:21:12 AM PDT by Red Badger
This global view of Mars is composed of about 100 Viking Orbiter images. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/USGS
=================================================================
New Study Challenges Long-Held Theory of Fate of Mars’ Water The new science results indicate that a large quantity of the Red Planet’s water is trapped in its crust rather than having escaped into space.
Billions of years ago, according to geological evidence, abundant water flowed across Mars and collected into pools, lakes, and deep oceans. New NASA-funded research shows a substantial quantity of its water – between 30 and 99% – is trapped within minerals in the planet’s crust, challenging the current theory that due to the Red Planet’s low gravity, its water escaped into space.
Early Mars was thought to have enough water to have covered the whole planet in an ocean roughly 100 to 1,500 meters (330 to 4,920 feet) deep – a volume roughly equivalent to half of Earth’s Atlantic Ocean. While some of this water undeniably disappeared from Mars via atmospheric escape, the new findings, published in the latest issue of Science, conclude it does not account for most of its water loss.
The results were presented at the 52nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) by lead author and Caltech Ph.D. candidate Eva Scheller along with co-authors Bethany Ehlmann, professor of planetary science at Caltech and associate director for the Keck Institute for Space Studies; Yuk Yung, professor of planetary science at Caltech and senior research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory; Danica Adams, Caltech graduate student; and Renyu Hu, JPL research scientist.
“Atmospheric escape doesn’t fully explain the data that we have for how much water actually once existed on Mars,” said Scheller.
Using a wealth of cross-mission data archived in NASA’s Planetary Data System (PDS), the research team integrated data from multiple NASA Mars Exploration Program missions and meteorite lab work. Specifically, the team studied the quantity of water on the Red Planet over time in all its forms (vapor, liquid, and ice) and the chemical composition of the planet’s current atmosphere and crust, looking in particular at the ratio of deuterium to hydrogen (D/H).
While water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen, not all hydrogen atoms are created equal. The vast majority of hydrogen atoms have just one proton within the atomic nucleus, while a tiny fraction (about 0.02%) exists as deuterium, or so-called “heavy” hydrogen, which has a proton and a neutron. The lighter-weight hydrogen escapes the planet’s gravity into space much easier than its denser counterpart. Because of this, the loss of a planet’s water via the upper atmosphere would leave a revealing sign on the ratio of deuterium to hydrogen in the planet’s atmosphere: There would be a very large amount of deuterium left behind.
However, the loss of water solely through the atmosphere cannot explain both the observed deuterium-to-hydrogen signal in the Martian atmosphere and large amounts of water in the past. Instead, the study proposes that a combination of two mechanisms – the trapping of water in minerals in the planet’s crust and the loss of water to the atmosphere – can explain the observed deuterium-to-hydrogen signal within the Martian atmosphere.
When water interacts with rock, chemical weathering forms clays and other hydrous minerals that contain water as part of their mineral structure. This process occurs on Earth as well as on Mars. On Earth, old crust continually melts into the mantle and forms new crust at plate boundaries, recycling water and other molecules back into the atmosphere through volcanism. Mars, however, has no tectonic plates, and so the “drying” of the surface, once it occurs, is permanent.
“The hydrated materials on our own planet are being continually recycled through plate tectonics,” said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. “Because we have measurements from multiple spacecraft, we can see that Mars doesn’t recycle, and so water is now locked up in the crust or been lost to space.”
A key objective of NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust). Scheller and Ehlmann will aid in operations by the Perseverance rover to collect these samples that will be returned to Earth through the Mars Sample Return program, which will allow the highly-anticipated further examination of these hypotheses about the drivers of Mars climate change. Understanding the evolution of the Martian environment is important context for understanding results from analyses of the returned samples as well as understanding how habitability changes over time on rocky planets.
The research and findings outlined in the paper highlight the significant contributions of early career scientists in expanding our understanding of the solar system. Similarly, the research, which relied on data from meteorites, telescopes, satellite observations, and samples analyzed by rovers on Mars, illustrates the importance of having multiple ways of probing the Red Planet.
This work was supported by a NASA Habitable Worlds award, a NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship (NESSF) award, and a NASA Future Investigator in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST) award.
It’s more the viciousness with which they attack anyone who threatens their turf that’s disturbing than the fact that science will always be in flux. They’ve discovered nothing yet that justifies the billions spent on the Hadron Super-collider. Now they want even more billions to build an even bigger one. And apparently some of the money goes to Hindu dances:
https://cds.cern.ch/record/745737?ln=en
Nah, that’s right-wing conspiracy crazy talk!
Only HUMANS can impact a planets temperature.
Everybody knows this!.............
The new robot has a drill...................
Water being trapped in minerals can mean very different things. They described it in surface minerals. But on Earth a vast amount of water exists in the crust, at from 326 to 410 miles of depth, bound up in a mineral called Ringwoodite.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringwoodite
It is estimated to have between two and three times the water as in all our oceans.
— Maury Amsterdam, on the Dick Van Dyke show
Yup—the history of science has been very clear.
The best way for science to advance is for the old scientists to die.
Drill Baby Drill!!
Easy, just create and destroy MASS...................
If we could create mass on a big enough scale, then maybe we leave Mars and Venus alone and just create a string of new Earths.
If we can create mass, then I assume we've advanced to where we can create any element. Streets paved of gold. Commodity metal prizes near worthless.
Of course if the goal is to modify gravity, destroying Mass sort of defeats the purpose. If you destroy the mass of Venus, then you've successfully disrupted gravity between Venus and the Sun, but there is nothing left to collide with Mars.
Either solution works. disrupt gravity or create new mass. But you have to tap into an external energy source if you go the create Mass route. Creating Mass would require a lot of energy. And if you consume all of Earth trying to create a mass the size of earth, then again, you've defeated the purpose.
Perhaps a 3rd solution.
A carefully placed large wormhole positioned in the orbital path of an inhabitable planet from a neighboring star would allow us to effectively steal a planet into our solar system.
It also allows us an escape route if something goes wrong with our Sun by operating that in reverse.
I like the gravity adjusting idea because it allows you to make fine tuned adjustments. But perhaps you could do the same with fine tuned planet sized wormholes.
What got me thinking alone the lines of disrupting gravity was watching this video on Quantum Mechanics where they explained the various particles can be thought of as vibrations in particular fields. Those vibrations can transform into vibrations in the other fields, effectively transforming particles of one time into another.
If everything is vibrations in a field, then maybe there is a way to dampen a field. And if you can dampen a field then maybe you can dampen gravitation. And if you can dampen a field can you also amplify it and do so in a way that uses energy from other sources than your own.
Like a rock star uses an amplifier instead of just singyelling louder and louder.
Yes singyelling is now a word, because I just used it.
Of course under the gravity is due to spacetime curvature which is due to Mass model, Maybe field dampening isn’t a viable option.
In that case, we need to learn how to make spacetime curve without using huge amounts of mass. Learning to manipulate space time curvature like that might allow you to create gravity dampening or amplifying folds in spacetime. And that skill could come in useful in a number of ways, including creating planet sized worm holes in order to steal planets from other solar systems.
Of course you could use a wormhole to crash Venus into Mars, without disrupting gravity.
Permafrost?
That is a major plot point of Larry Novel’s A World Out of Time novel.
That’s Larry Niven not novel.
Durn autocorrect.😖
I hope to walk streets paved in gold one day..................
Mélange........Maybe that’s why Mars is red..................
Those can be difficult to get out of. You should bring quantum jumping beans with you.
.... or a lot of refried beans..................
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.