Liquid water confirmed on Mars

louis · 2018-07-25 11:03:53

Large body of liquid water confirmed on Mars...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/art … n-ice.html

Sadly, beneath the southern polar cap. But encouraging nonetheless.

Void · 2018-07-25 13:29:58

That is very interesting Louis.

1) The first thing it makes me think is the bottom of such a lake should not be permafrost. So, it is rather possible that the waters of that "Lake" might feed aquifers. The South Polar ice cap being of a high elevation, then I might imagine the possibility of springs showing up somewhere similar to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Juan_Pond

However, the permafrost generally may prohibit it until and if an aquifer flow gets to low enough latitudes and elevations to allow the permafrost to be punctured to create a spring. Such a place I would think would be what you want to look for next.

2) The second thing it makes me think is that after all even when the poles of the planet are not tilted and if the low latitudes were completely dry, and all the ice stored at the two poles, there might have been a sanctuary for life on Mars. Therefore, if life existed, it may have persisted even during such a polar tilt.

Another thought along the same lines as #1 is finding the remains of something like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Vanda
Quote:

Lake Vanda is a lake in Wright Valley, Victoria Land, Ross Dependency, Antarctica. The lake is 5 km long and has a maximum depth of 69 m.[2] On its shore, New Zealand maintained Vanda Station from 1968 to 1995. Lake Vanda is a hypersaline lake with a salinity more than ten times that of seawater,[3] more than the salinity of the Dead Sea, and perhaps even more than of Lake Assal (Djibouti), which is the world's most saline lake outside of Antarctica. Lake Vanda is also meromictic, which means that the deeper waters of the lake don't mix with the shallower waters.[4] There are three distinct layers of water ranging in temperature from 23 °C (73 °F) on the bottom to the middle layer of 7 °C (45 °F) and the upper layer ranges from 4–6 °C (39–43 °F).[5] It is only one of the many saline lakes in the ice-free valleys of the Transantarctic Mountains. The longest river of Antarctica, Onyx River, flows West, inland, into Lake Vanda. There is a meteorological station at the mouth of the river.

I think the probability of a existing lake like Lake Vanda is unlikely but perhaps a dried up one could be found from some time in history, and this might be a good place to look for evidence of life. I am presuming that it would have been fed by salt springs, not a river, but if it was ice covered, and the temperature fluctuations natural to Mars occurred, then we could expect water stratification. On the other hand most likely any ice would be dust covered, so we would not expect a solar input. In that case it might just not stay fluid.

Done.

Last edited by Void (2018-07-25 13:42:49)

SpaceNut · 2018-07-25 17:36:26

The mars under the poles is down a mile in depth and nuclear is the only option for manned or unmanned access to the store of water.

Void · 2018-07-25 19:03:40

Let me try again.

What are the chances of a planetary or partial planetary artesian flow system on Mars?

Here is some reference materials that refer to artesian processes in Alaska associated with permafrost.
https://highlatitudestyle.com/permafros … ndra-ootd/
They mention artesian springs, "Frost Blisters", and Pingo's.

Not Done.

Last edited by Void (2018-07-25 19:08:55)

louis · 2018-07-25 19:08:11

I would have thought partial high, planetary low. As I understand it, it's the brineyness of the water that controls its liquidity so it's not going to lose a lot of brine content through travelling through ice or rocks I would think. So, yes, nothing to stop it travelling hundreds or thousands of miles, but I doubt there's an interconnected planetary system...

Void wrote:

Let me try again.
What are the chances of a planetary or partial planetary artesian flow system on Mars?
Not Done.

Void · 2018-07-25 19:13:15

Ohh… Not Done.

All right I will go in commando.

The existence of the lake has to be further proven, but I do know that the ones who released the information held onto it for years until they were sure.

If there is one there are likely to be others.

So, lets presume that some lakes did exist and do exist.

In order to have an artesian system, first of all they have to leak out of their bottoms. Without that there is no particular reason to go further. A possible exception to that statement would be if the axis of the planet were tilted to the extreme, I think it would be possible for the atmospheric pressure to be higher, and for there to be snows, and noon day snow melts, at least inside of dirty snow banks. You would not need temperatures above freezing for that.

But lets lay that aside and work with what we now think could be Lake(s) under ice. We have the first part of a water cycle. First, frost or a very strange snow of CO2 and H20, a fairy dust accumulate on the poles. And if this lake is true, then it sometimes, perhaps at least in one place melts. That is the first part of loading up an artesian aquifer.

You also need altitude for such an artesian aquifer. The South Pole is higher than the North Pole. That makes some difference. If there are aquifers at each pole they must behave differently. The proposed South Polar aquifer would potentially have much more potential of a large differential pressure.
……

The next question is how permeable are the lake(s) bottoms? You can't load up an aquifer unless the lake bottom leaks. If the permafrost extends under the lake bottom then it likely will not leak, and your aquifer won't get loaded.

Permafrost extends some distance out under the Arctic Ocean, so that might be a fact for these lakes. But I don't think so. Three factors must melt the water, heat, salt, and pressure. (This presumes that somehow lake(s) exist).

Pressure is not going to be too much of a factor. I think they said 1 mile of ice over the lake in a .38 g field. But it might make a contribution.

So after that some combination of salts and temperature must exist, unless their is an antifreeze I don't know of. But lets consider that possibility before dismissing it. What if living cells generated Ammonia or some other antifreeze in order to provide themselves with liquid water? I think it unlikely but still I don't think we can entirely and completely dismiss it. As an evolutionary capability it would have been premium for the decaying Martian conditions over billions of years. And so, we might figure out what happened to the Nitrogen of Mars.

I am not saying it is so, rather that it is an item I would keep my eyes open for. The negative part of it is you have organisms that have to live in a cold Ammonia/Water mix, probably with high salt levels as well.

…..

Another item to consider is how deep is the broken regolith on Mars relative to Earth. I can likely presume that it is deeper than Earth on average, and so, any brine seeping out of lakes might go significantly deeper into the presumed porosity. It might even encounter some heat at a lower level. So this would help promote fluidity, and under the ice caps if a convective cycle like a geyser existed, might help to explain the lakes. However, I keep that notion as a less likely idea.

Now if you have a deep broken regolith which may have been etched with flowing water for billions of years to provide underground channels, I see no reason it should freeze at those higher water column pressure and presumably higher geothermal temperatures. If water can melt under the south polar ice cap, then unless that water was melted by some geothermal hot spot, then I have to presume that liquid water getting deep into the regolith can remain melted particularly if it has an antifreeze such as salt in it.

So we know that the south hemisphere is much higher than the north hemisphere of Mars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography … Topography

If there is a water table on Mars, slowly fed by melting ice, then the edges of Hellas or the Valles Marineris, might be good places to check for artesian wells. Maybe active now, maybe active historically.

……

After much anguish, I am vindicated. Maybe.
https://www.space.com/18485-mars-cold-s … -life.html
Quote:

Mars Ripe for 'Cold Springs' Akin to Canadian Arctic
So-called "cold springs" in Canada's high arctic may be similar to active springs that could potentially exist on Mars, scientists studying the springs suggest.
Researchers probed the makeup of several salt-laden pools in the arctic permafrost, similar to salt environments that spacecraft orbiting Mars have spotted on the Red Planet. The arctic pools contain microbial life, and could give primitive life a haven if they exist on Mars, researchers say.
"On Mars, we don’t know if there are any springs, but the environment is essentially completely permafrost. So these springs are potential analogs for present-day Mars," said Gordon Osinski, a University of Western Ontario assistant professor who has expertise in planetary geology.
Advertisement
The work is led by Melissa Battler, a Ph.D. candidate at the university, with Osinski supervising. The research will be detailed in two studies to be published in the journal Icarus, and is being discussed at the Canadian Space Society's annual meeting this week in London, Ontario.
A flavor of Mars
An Arctic spring site on Axel Heiberg Island in Canada's north. Scientists suggests similar active springs could be found on Mars.
Credit: Melissa Battler
Battler did the first geological and mineralogical measurements of three springs in Axel Heiberg, an island high in the Nunavut territory.
To everyone's surprise, each spring had a different type of mineral in it; carbonate calcite, and the salts gypsum and sodium sulphate, were the variations that were found. Researchers are now trying to figure out why the composition varies.
Active springs haven't yet been found on Mars, the researchers noted. Even high-definition spacecraft peering at the Red Planet today, like NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, cannot see features of a meter or less in size — the size of a typical spring in the Arctic.
But if the springs exist on Mars, the researchers said they could support microbial life. Because salt keeps the water warm in freezing temperatures, researchers found microbes in the Arctic springs even though the surrounding ground is permafrost.
In the Northwest Territories, Battler also analyzed a spring containing jarosite, a mineral that forms in water. This mineral is particularly exciting to researchers because on Mars, the Spirit and Opportunity rovers both found it as well.
"We are confident that a Martian jarosite patch could form under conditions not much warmer nor more humid than those present on Mars today," Battler wrote in an email to SPACE.com.
"Although this doesn't preclude the possibility that Mars may have had a warmer and wetter past, it does suggest that warmer and wetter conditions weren't necessary to explain Martian jarosite."

Melissa Battler, a University of Western Ontario Ph.D. candidate, inside a spring vent on Axel Heiberg Island. Scientists suggest similar active springs could be found on Mars.
Credit: Mike Dixon
The Arctic sites where these springs appear used to be tropical oceans. When the climate cooled and the oceans evaporated, large deposits of salt were left behind.
The salt formed hundreds of millions of years ago and lay beneath today's springs, which formed when groundwater (it's not known exactly where it came from) brought water to the surface. New salts formed from the old ones in the groundwater.
Mars had water streambeds in its ancient past and could have formed its salt deposits through a similar process.
NASAand other groups are eagerly exploring Canada's north because they believe the permafrost and harsh conditions found there are similar to what is experienced on Mars.
The Canadian Space Society will host another Arctic session from McGill University. The researchers examined jarosite and other salt types in lake sediments on Devon Island. They suggested that signatures of life could be left behind on Mars in some salt environments.
Additionally, Canadian scientists work in Nunavut at the 52-year-old McGill Arctic Research Station – better known as MARS.
Follow Elizabeth Howell @howellspace and SPACE.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook & Google+.
Author Bio

Elizabeth Howell, Space.com Contributor
Elizabeth Howell is a contributing writer for Space.com who is one of the few Canadian journalists to report regularly on space exploration. She is pursuing a Ph.D. part-time in aerospace sciences (University of North Dakota) after completing an M.Sc. (space studies) at the same institution. She also holds a bachelor of journalism degree from Carleton University. Besides writing, Elizabeth teaches communications at the university and community college level. To see her latest projects, follow Elizabeth on Twitter at @HowellSpace.
Elizabeth Howell, Space.com Contributor on

And I have already mentioned Don Juan Pond in Antarctica, which apparently is spring fed salt water, and almost never freezes over. (To be fair, it may be so hostile that Earth life can't tolerate it, at least some of the time).

……

I have another piece of speculation to go for proposed "AOLEAN SALT CYCLE".

I will now go even to far as to ask if it might be possible that some water signs at low latitudes might be from upwelling salt water, of a planet wide water table. If it were so, then how would the salt return to the precipitation sites (The polar caps). Well over a very long time with the winds, and the dust.

But this is a thing I would look for evidence for. I am not stating that it is so.

Done.

Last edited by Void (2018-07-25 20:00:42)

louis · 2018-07-26 05:13:36

Do we know why a number of scientists discount the possibility of life existing in briny water on Mars? Life exists in salt water (the sea) on Earth...and in many briny environments.

This interesting article references origins of RNA in freezing and thawing cycles.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/scienc … nings.html

And then there's this from another article:

"Over the years, scientists have identified a wide range of halophilic (salt-loving) and psychrophilic (cold-loving) microbes here on Earth. Recently, we’ve even found a few psychrohalophiles — you guessed it, cold-salt lovers — that thrive in briny, Antarctic lakes or veins of liquid sandwiched within glacial ice sheets."

https://gizmodo.com/what-sorts-of-life- … 1733458742

But whenever this topic gets reported, we seem to hear voices downplaying the chances of life.

It seems to me that there is a very high chance of life being found on Mars now.

RobertDyck · 2018-07-26 06:25:20

Remember, when ESA reported results from MARSIS, they said the south polar ice cap is 3.7km thick. And it's not permafrost, it's too clean; it's a polar ice cap. They also found a huge deposit of dry ice embedded within the water ice. The water is 1.5 kilometres (0.9 miles) under the surface. One reporter claimed this is due to pressure. That much overburden sitting on it will create high pressure, and that pressure changes the melting temperature.

In the article, one sentence says "below the surface of a region called Planum Australe, close to the Martian south pole", but another sentence says "Far beneath the ice cap at Mars’s south pole lies a lake of liquid water...". That's contradictory, is it under the ice or not?

Void · 2018-08-04 13:05:39

Lets have fun!

I have reviewed your materials for my ulterior motives Louis. Interesting.
RobertDyck, I am not sure at all about your query, but it may be possible that the south polar ice cap is physically displaced from the actual south pole of Mars rotation??? Not sure what to think.

Anyway, I am going to work with what we already have, and add some new features. I am now very inclined to think that Mars could indeed support a planet wide underground network of lakes and aquifers, and indeed briny springs.

The implications for life would be very large if this were true. Also, the implications for human habitation if it was decided to inhabit Mars, would be very large. But for now, in this place, I will stick to the generalized topic "Water on Mars".

……

OK, I will make one deviation to life, and then return to the issue of water. You may query for electric life. You may think about an association of water, electricity, and life. It is very real.

By the way, I proposed electric life a long time ago. Many years ago, and was given the bums rush out of the door, by a member (Not here now) who very probably was of the ancient farmer heritage that is so honored by the verbal and for the verbal. Boo Hoo, but no Ha Ha!

……

Back to water, but with electricity! I have tried this before with volcanism. Now I do it with underground lakes, aquifers, and springs.

OK, I am going to argue this for Mars, and Antarctica, and the North Polar ice sheets/caps as well. Maybe glaciers in general.

It is interesting, but I had incredibly intelligent instructors in my electricians apprenticeship. He made us aware that there are ground currents traveling though the ground all the time. Typically high current and lower voltage. Not really available for industrial purposes, but in this case I think important for water on Mars, and perhaps life on Mars in that water.

Often when I try to get supporting information from the internet for my arguments, I deal with a lot of frustration. But it appears I got lucky this time.

http://www.feb.se/EMFguru/EMF/ground-currents.html

Well, I will try again with the query "Natural Ground Currents". Grrrr….
Alright! Another situation where I got a spanking, and now I find support. I find similar thinking now, that's good.
http://electricfertilizer.com/2014/07/n … nt-health/
Quote:

Cosmic and Planetary Influences
So where do these Earth-currents come from?
A good portion of the “induced” electric fields over the planet come from interactions between the solar wind and the magnetosphere, which protects the planet from harmful cosmic radiation. They are also the result of interactions between the sun’s radiation and the planet’s ionosphere. Variations in these bodies range from subtle changes over days or weeks to rapidly changing geomagnetic “storms.” These storms are capable of inducing varying amounts of electricity in the ground. Thus, when there are changes in the electromagnetic activity in our atmosphere, the Earth is also affected.
An excellent resource on the subject of atmospheric and telluric electricity can be found in a collection of articles called The Earth’s Electrical Environment

I am not prancing about thinking I am clever, but Power=Current times Voltage.
You need a conductor though don't you. Will water with a bit of salt do?

In actuality, I am arriving at a modification of my previous thinking that lakes under the polar ice caps of Mars would be due to geothermal heat, pressure, and salts.

We can think of adding CO2, which certainly will exist in small amounts at least in both the (Mars) north and south polar ice caps. We can also consider these ice caps to be electrical insulators in places and electrical conductors where briny or salty liquid water exists.

The acid nature of seltzer water may be hostile to life??? I am guessing up to a point it can be lived with. Salty, acid, and rather cold, but water.

Sometimes you sort of get lucky:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_an … a_and.html
Interesting the 50 x Oxygen in the Antarctic lakes, (Maybe Europa also), not likely for Mars though I think, but:
Quote:

Roughly half of Antarctica’s 5 million square miles of glacial ice may sit on a bed of liquid water and mud—“the largest swamp in the world,” as it’s called by Slawek Tulaczyk, a glaciologist from the University of California–Santa Cruz who co-led the Lake Whillans drilling project. Much of that subglacial swamp may contain oxygen.

So, in part, if it is electrically heated, (Open minds required), how big might the swamp be on Mars?

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars … 70315.html
Quote:

Mars' South Pole Ice Deep and Wide
03.15.07

Pasadena, Calif. -- New measurements of Mars' south polar region indicate extensive frozen water. The polar region contains enough frozen water to cover the whole planet in a liquid layer approximately 11 meters (36 feet) deep. A joint NASA-Italian Space Agency instrument on the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft provided these data.
This new estimate comes from mapping the thickness of the ice. The Mars Express orbiter's radar instrument has made more than 300 virtual slices through layered deposits covering the pole to map the ice. The radar sees through icy layers to the lower boundary, which is as deep as 3.7 kilometers (2.3 miles) below the surface.
Image right: This map shows the thickness of the south polar layered deposits of Mars, an ice-rich geologic unit that was probed by the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS).
Image Credit: NASA/JPL/ASI/ESA/Univ. of Rome/MOLA Science Team/USGS
+ Full image and caption
+ View more images
"The south polar layered deposits of Mars cover an area bigger than Texas. The amount of water they contain has been estimated before, but never with the level of confidence this radar makes possible," said Jeffrey Plaut of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena Calif. Plaut is co-principal investigator for the radar and lead author of a new report on these findings published in the March 15 online edition of the journal Science. The instrument, named the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS), also is mapping the thickness of similar layered deposits at the north pole of Mars.
"Our radar is doing its job extremely well," said Giovanni Picardi, a professor at the University of Rome "La Sapienza," and principal investigator for the instrument.
"MARSIS is showing itself to be a very powerful tool to probe underneath the Martian surface, and it's showing how our team's goals, such as probing the polar layered deposits, are being successfully achieved," Picardi said. "Not only is MARSIS providing us with the first-ever views of Mars subsurface at those depths, but the details we are seeing are truly amazing. We expect even greater results when we have concluded an ongoing, sophisticated fine-tuning of our data processing methods. These should enable us to understand even better the surface and subsurface composition."
Polar layered deposits hold most of the known water on modern Mars, though other areas of the planet appear to have been very wet at times in the past. Understanding the history and fate of water on Mars is a key to studying whether Mars has ever supported life, since all known life depends on liquid water.
The polar layered deposits extend beyond and beneath a polar cap of bright-white frozen carbon dioxide and water at Mars' south pole. Dust darkens many of the layers. However, the strength of the echo that the radar receives from the rocky surface underneath the layered deposits suggests the composition of the layered deposits is at least 90 percent frozen water. One area with an especially bright reflection from the base of the deposits puzzles researchers. It resembles what a thin layer of liquid water might look like to the radar instrument, but the conditions are so cold that the presence of melted water is deemed highly unlikely.
Detecting the shape of the ground surface beneath the ice deposits provides information about even deeper structures of Mars. "We didn't really know where the bottom of the deposit was," Plaut said. "Now we can see that the crust has not been depressed by the weight of the ice as it would be on the Earth. The crust and upper mantle of Mars are stiffer than the Earth's, probably because the interior of Mars is so much colder."
The MARSIS instrument on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter was developed jointly by the Italian Space Agency and NASA, under the scientific supervision of the University of Rome "La Sapienza," in partnership with JPL and the University of Iowa, Iowa City. JPL manages NASA's roles in Mars Express for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
For information about NASA and agency programs, visit: www.nasa.gov

Media contacts: Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Dwayne Brown/Tabatha Thompson 202-358-1726/3895
NASA Headquarters, Washington
ESA Media Relations Office 33-1-53-69-7155
European Space Agency, Paris
2007-030

Quite a long post, but so what, I like it.

Here is repeated information about cold briny springs in high Artic Canada:
https://www.space.com/18485-mars-cold-s … -life.html

……

Alight, without confidence, I will propose that indeed, Mars is electrical, and the electrical nature of it is also facilitated by a mostly underground network of Lakes, and aquifers, and the it is even possible that the water signatures at low latitudes may in some cases be frozen or briny water upwellings from such an electrical briny network of lakes and aquifers. Snow some of the time, but maybe not always. Briny springs might be like electrodes which protrude towards the open ground and accept (-) or (+) charges to redistribute across the electrical network.

……

What about dust storms. How electrical and tied to the solar wind are they?
https://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/so … _chem.html
This one:
I am going to discuss also about Hydrogen loss at some point if I get the chance elsewhere. Hydrogen leaves, maybe an electrical effect from that as well?
https://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/news/8299/dus … tmosphere/

That's a whole lot and plenty. Ready for a nap.

Done.

Last edited by Void (2018-08-05 10:50:37)

Void · 2018-08-05 10:51:58

I missed noting an item of possible importance in this link, in the previous post #9.
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars … 70315.html
Quote:

The polar layered deposits extend beyond and beneath a polar cap of bright-white frozen carbon dioxide and water at Mars' south pole. Dust darkens many of the layers. However, the strength of the echo that the radar receives from the rocky surface underneath the layered deposits suggests the composition of the layered deposits is at least 90 percent frozen water. One area with an especially bright reflection from the base of the deposits puzzles researchers. It resembles what a thin layer of liquid water might look like to the radar instrument, but the conditions are so cold that the presence of melted water is deemed highly unlikely.

So, where you Louis have alerted us to news about water under the south polar ice cap of Mars, it could be that we have a second example from historical examinations of the south layered deposits which might indicate the potential of another body of water, not under the polar ice cap, but in the layered deposits.

No iron clad proof yet, but strong hints.

We can try to produce a water containing liquid with salt, and I have added CO2 dissolved in the water which would reduce the freezing point. But geothermal being hard to believe in, I do support the investigation into Earth Electric Currents as a contribution,

I also suggest that subsurface mars could be like an electric circuit board with the board being insulating solid permafrost and ice, and the conductors being a fluid which is significantly water with salts and CO2 included. If there are "Earth Currents"of significance on Mars, I would expect that this would happen.

……

This an old article hostile to the idea of life near the surface of Mars, but it suggests that dust storms are electric in nature, and I really don't care that much about the hostile surface of Mars. Although I might suggest that with CO in the atmosphere, having some Peroxide to breath and CO as food might be rather nice for an adapted life form.
https://www.universetoday.com/405/elect … mpossible/

……

This is fun:
https://space.stackexchange.com/questio … ust-storms

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/12/ … -heartbeat

Well, dust devils and the solar wind, and solar activity in the ionosphere may indeed be electric and may stimulate Earth/Ground currents extending into "Wet" flow paths in the subsurface of Mars. I wonder how much electric power a planet wide dust storm as now is occurring is dissipated into the environment of Mars? May be MASSIVE.

Later.....

I found something good! An oldie but maybe goodie! Can't validate it completely.
https://www.wired.com/2013/01/rocket-dust-storms/
Quote:

Crazy Alien Weather: Lightning-Filled Rocket Dust Storms of Mars
Scientists have modeled the internal workings of lightning-filled “rocket dust storms” on Mars that rise at speeds 100 times faster than ordinary storms and inject dust high into the Martian atmosphere.
The Red Planet is a very dry and dusty place, with global storms that sometimes obscure the entire surface. Satellites orbiting Mars have seen persistent dust layers reaching very high altitudes, as much as 30 to 50 km above the ground, though scientists are at a loss to explain exactly how the dust got there.
Using a high-resolution model, researchers have shown that a thick blob-like dust pocket inside a storm may become heated by the sun, causing the surrounding atmosphere to warm quickly. Because hot air rises, these areas will shoot skyward super fast, much like a rocket launching into space, hence “rocket dust storms.”
“The vertical transport was so strong we want to come up with a kind of spectacular name, to give an idea of the very powerful rise,” said planetary scientist Aymeric Spiga from the Institut Pierre Simon Laplace in Paris, France, who is lead author on a paper describing the phenomena in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets on Jan. 14.

Image: Electric charge buildup could create lightning in Martian dust storms. (NASA)
These speedily rising dust blobs can soar from near the surface to 30 or 40 km into the atmosphere in a matter of hours at speeds in excess of 10 meters per second (22 mph). This is far faster than the typical convection speeds in a dust storm of 0.1 meters per second (0.2 mph). Since the dust particles rub up against one another and create friction, the rocket dust storms may become charged with electrostatic forces, which could which could trigger fantastic lightning bolts.
Spiga and his team used detailed models of winds and dust on Mars to determine exactly how these rocket dust storms behave. Most previous models of Mars’ climate simulate large-scale global dust storms with fairly coarse resolution and so have not noticed the rocket storms. The team seeded their model with data from a dust storm observed by the OMEGA instrument aboard ESA’s Mars Express orbiting satellite and watched the rise of rocket storms.
Similar dust storms can’t happen on Earth. This is mainly because Mars’ atmosphere is about 100 times thinner than our own, meaning that it gets quickly and efficiently heated when dust particles absorb sunlight and then emit thermal radiation.
But a comparable phenomenon occurs in grey cumulonimbus thunderstorm clouds on Earth. The large accumulations of water particles in such clouds release latent heat, causing strong vertical motions and an extensive tall structure. Spiga’s team has used this Earthly analogy in the rocket dust storm’s more technical name, conio-cumulonimbus, from the Greek conious, which means dust.
“But I prefer to call them rocket dust storms,” Spiga said. “Then everyone knows what I’m talking about.”
Other researchers are impressed with the physical modeling done in the work. “I was a little surprised that such a small dust disturbance could remain intact over such long distances,” said planetary atmospheres scientist Scot Rafkin from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. The mechanism could help explain how long-lasting layers of dust climb so high in the Martian atmosphere, he says.
Because they appear to be relatively rare, it may take a while to track down more rocket dust storms. But Spiga is hopeful they will be found by orbiting satellites, which may even image the lightning flashes inside them.
Video: Spiga, Aymeric, et al. “Rocket dust storms and detached dust layers in the Martian atmosphere,” JGR:Planets, DOI: 10.1002/jgre.20046

You might be amused, simulations of the sound of thunder on Mars included.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ … ounds.html

Done

Last edited by Void (2018-08-05 12:13:59)

Void · 2018-08-06 21:29:12

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper-atm … _lightning

The above post is reasonably real thinking. But Lets have a giant train of question marks??????????

About the "Beam" of light on Mars spotted by curiosity rover several years ago. Glint off of a rock? A cosmic ray messing with the rovers instrumentation? Or might it be an electrical discharge? I am not saying it is, not at all, I am asking what an electrical discharge would look like. I am not inclined to expect one in clear weather, on Mars, but then I don't know that much about electrical discharges on Mars.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=St … B&FORM=VIR

https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/video … s-23245109

I am not saying it is an electrical discharge. I am also not crediting it to aliens who hide underground but like to toy with us.

I am just saying "I wonder what lightning on Mars might look like?" "Are there different types of lightning on Mars?".

Done.

Last edited by Void (2018-08-13 12:04:56)

Void · 2018-08-13 12:05:58

OK, I think I have a path to some of the Martian atmosphere being stored underground.

The Earth's Lake Vostok:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Vostok
Quote:

Traits[edit]

Vostok Station
The lake water is estimated to have been sealed off under the thick ice sheet about 15 million years ago.[7] Initially, it was thought that the same water had made up the lake since the time of its formation, giving a residence time in the order of one million years.[27] Later research by Robin Bell and Michael Studinger from the Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University suggested that the water of the lake is continually freezing and being carried away by the motion of the Antarctic ice sheet, while being replaced by water melting from other parts of the ice sheet in these high pressure conditions. This resulted in an estimate that the entire volume of the lake is replaced every 13,300 years — its effective mean residence time.[32]
The coldest naturally occurring temperature ever observed on Earth, −89 °C (−128 °F), was recorded at Vostok Station on 21 July 1983.[7] The average water temperature is calculated to be around −3 °C (27 °F); it remains liquid below the normal freezing point because of high pressure from the weight of the ice above it.[33] Geothermal heat from the Earth's interior may warm the bottom of the lake,[34][35][36] while the ice sheet itself insulates the lake from cold temperatures on the surface.
Lake Vostok is an oligotrophic extreme environment, one that is expected to be supersaturated with nitrogen and oxygen,[37][38] measuring 2.5 litres (0.088 cu ft) of nitrogen and oxygen per 1 kg (2.2 lb) of water,[39] that is 50 times higher than those typically found in ordinary freshwater lakes on Earth's surface. The sheer weight and pressure around 345 bars (5,000 psi) of the continental ice cap on top of Lake Vostok is estimated to contribute to the high gas concentration.[40]
Besides dissolving in the water, oxygen and other gases are trapped in a type of structure called a clathrate. In clathrate structures, gases are enclosed in an icy cage and look like packed snow. These structures form at the high-pressure depths of Lake Vostok and would become unstable if brought to the surface.[27][39]
In April 2005, German, Russian, and Japanese researchers found that the lake has tides.[41] Depending on the position of the Sun and the Moon, the surface of the lake rises about 12 mm (0.47 in).[42] The lake is under complete darkness, under 355 bar (5,150 psi) of pressure, and expected to be rich in oxygen, so there is speculation that any organisms inhabiting the lake could have evolved in a manner unique to this environment.[23][39] There is a 1 microtesla magnetic anomaly on the east coast of the lake, spanning 105 by 75 km (65 by 47 mi). Researchers hypothesize that the anomaly may be caused by a thinning of the Earth's crust in that location.[43]
Living Hydrogenophilus thermoluteolus micro-organisms have been found in Lake Vostok's deep ice core drillings; they are an extant surface-dwelling species.[38][44] This suggests the presence of a deep biosphere utilizing a geothermal system of the bedrock encircling the subglacial lake. There is optimism that microbial life in the lake may be possible despite high pressure, constant cold, low nutrient input, potentially high oxygen concentration and an absence of sunlight.[38][45][46] Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus may also harbor lakes or oceans below a thick crust of ice. Any confirmation of life in Lake Vostok could strengthen the prospect for the presence of life on icy moons.[38][47]

So, it is thinkable that indeed the Martian polar ice caps are slow motion atmospheric compressors, injecting fluids saturated with dissolved gasses into a wide ranging underground system.

The main difference from Lake Vostok would be the large scale involvement of CO2 in the process.

So, under pressure, you can very likely get liquid CO2 at those temperatures presumed. But even more likely you might get sparkling water, with salts dissolved in.

So, if an aquifer were filled by this method with these fluids, I would expect that deep down, in places, Clathrate would form, locking up CO2, and Nitrogen, and Oxygen. Argon? Don't know.

So things that could plug up the porosity of an aquifer in this situation would be fresh water ice, and Clathrates of various types.

The fluid mixture might alter by leaving behind dissolved gasses as clathrates, and by being somewhat heated by underground methods.
Geothermal, and in my opinion Electrical Earth Currents (On Mars).

So, perhaps it could be guessed where some mixture might erupt to the surface some times. If the eruption involves salty sparkling water, then the CO2 would flash off and perhaps quick freeze at least part of the remaining water based brine.

Presumed Chemical Reactions:
I expect that Hydrogen will be created by the slightly acid and salty fluid interacting with underground rocks.

The atmospheric gasses compressed and with possible perchlorate salts present, an Oxygen and Chlorine source present.
And to some small extent compressed CO as a fuel, and to a large extent CO2 which could be consumed by life, along with the Hydrogen presumed to evolve. This would likely produce Methane.

And there would be the possibility of powering electric life by interactions with the rock of such a fluid. And at times, metals and other substances might electroplate out, but then be available for life to consume.

Done

Last edited by Void (2018-08-13 12:29:17)

Void · 2018-08-13 20:22:47

Based on the previous post, I am going to go a bit further. I believe it is possible that in large part the Northern ocean of Mars may have absorbed much of the atmosphere as sediments of clathrates over time.

This could explain why the atmosphere of Mars is near the triple point of water. If atmosphere is lost to space, or to some geological process, and the pressure declines, then the evaporation of water ice will be facilitated. If there is clathrate in the ground, it is possible it will be exposed by the process. Therefore a feedback to keep the atmospheric pressure up. Maybe.
About ice on Mars now:
http://earthsky.org/space/mars-undergro … a-planitia

My impression of atmospheric loss is that it happened rather suddenly after a wet period, where it is even presumed that open water existed on seas and lakes. The typically explained as the result of the loss of the geomagnetic field. Well maybe that is true, maybe it is not so much true as we are conditioned to believe.

For my purposes it is not necessary to discredit the magnetic field theory. It may have merit, but it is not critical to what I will say about the ability of polar ice caps and freezing ocean/seas on Mars to also capture and hold long term atmospheric gasses.

The main point will be that Mars got colder by whatever process, and we presume that the ocean/seas began to freeze over. An interesting feature of this would be that due to dust darkening ice, and say the atmosphere being >= 15 mb, it is possible that during the days at noon, (At the equator) or the summers (At the poles), in some places surface water would melt.

So we might have a high probability of a continuation of the Northern ocean for a time, where it might be 1/2 frozen on top and 1/2 liquid on the bottom. I am working on this. It could be that the Northern ocean would be too shallow to hold clathrates stable. Then again, if the liquid of it became more briny as the ice above ejected the salts downward, later on it might be a very frigid sea, very far below the freezing point of fresh water. This might help for the purpose.

So, I will presume that would be the terminal phase of the Ocean prior to it freezing over entirely, or evaporating to space (Which I don't believe it mostly did).

I'm getting tired and maybe a little challenged. I don't offer this as fact or perfectly processed but as an attempt to figure it out.

I will add this nice reference:
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-la … onian.html

What I am after is a method of pumping of atmosphere to the bottom of a freezing ocean that overlies aquifers. I think this could work rather well. Particularly if CO2 is in small part condensing or dissolving into cold waters or ice.

At the bottom of an ice cap it could be possible that a CO2/Water/Salt mixture would result with pressure, and heat of geothermal, and in my view heat of Earth/Ground Currents. This could fill aquifers, and in reality compress CO2 into aquifers, where it might either create clathrate in the aquifer quite far down, or perhaps springs of this cold stuff ejected into the bottom of an ocean/sea with very cold brine temperatures (At the termination of the age of such oceans/seas), may have provided conditions for clathrate to form.

……

The evidence that the solar wind takes atmosphere away is primarily Mercury and the Moon.

I don't take the current typical thinking about the atmosphere of Mars as a reasonable evidence. OK, you say that the thin atmosphere of Mars is evidence that the solar wind wholesale took away the atmosphere of Mars. That is sort of circular I would say.

For Mercury, you have intense solar driven temperatures and yes very strong solar wind. In addition, it appears that some process actually may have stripped away much of the outer layers of the planet, so that it is very dense. So, I am not that inclined to say that it was only the heat of the sun, and the solar wind that prevented it from having an atmosphere. This other process which stripped away the lighter elements may have done a lot of it as well. But really I don't know. At those temperatures, and proximity to the sun, I am willing to entertain the notion that the solar wind was a big contributor. But Mercury may have never had that much volatile materials in the first place. The water at the poles of Mercury could be solar in origin. But, yes I don't know.

For Venus, you can state that is possible that Venus is like it is because:
1) A planet with .9 gravity and solar intensity and solar wind ~x4 (Of that of Mars) can retain an atmosphere without a geomagnetic field, but with an inductive ionosphere magnetic field.
2) Or; Venus usually has a magnetic field, and we have by great coincidence become spacefaring just at a time when this field is flipping. It is possible, but I think it is not all that probable.

For our Moon, which currently has very little atmosphere, perhaps we have to agree that when a planet/moon falls to a certain size, an induced ionosphere magnetosphere, is not sufficient to hold the atmosphere. But we could also argue that it did not have all that much volatile materials to make an atmosphere. I myself just for giggles like to believe that the Moon could have started as an icy condensate moon like the moons of Jupiter, and was later roasted on it's surface by lets say the great bombardment era? Well, then again maybe not. If we get to the Moon, humans will be able to search for physical evidence supporting any number of theories. I would like that answered.

For Mars, a fossil magnetic field, and a thin atmosphere near the triple point of water in pressure.
I have seen all kinds of ideas on what happened to the atmosphere.
-The wholesale geomagnetic field collapsed, and that fossil field made it even easier for the atmosphere to escape.
-Then I have seen notions that Mars never had a wholesale geomagnetic field.
-Lately some of the Europeans have seemed to say Mars is well protected from the solar wind. I kind of like the Europeans. Our gals and guys do some fantastic things, but for instance they did not bother to build an ion rocket that could intake atmosphere at the edge of atmosphere and use it for propulsion. I am glad there is another different space culture/mentality happening there.

…..

This article seems to support to a degree the possibility of a network of aquifers on Mars:
https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/25/1760 … life-radar

……

OK, then there is this. Hydrogen from Mars apparently has 3 reservoirs. The Mantle, the atmosphere itself, and a hidden reservoir.
So, the isotopes of Hydrogen measured for Mars do indicate a significant Hydrogen loss, but for that water which circulates through the atmosphere. Not for the two other reservoirs. Therefore to a degree it is a false reading (Perhaps).
https://phys.org/news/2014-12-scientist … rvoir.html
Quote:

The samples revealed water comprised of hydrogen atoms that have a ratio of isotopes distinct from that found in water in the Red Planet's mantle and current atmosphere. Isotopes are atoms of the same element with differing numbers of neutrons.
While recent orbiter missions have confirmed the presence of subsurface ice, and melting ground-ice is believed to have formed some geomorphologic features on Mars, this study used meteorites of different ages to show that significant ground water-ice may have existed relatively intact over time.
Researchers emphasize that the distinct hydrogen isotopic signature of the water reservoir must be of sufficient size that it has not reached isotopic equilibrium with the atmosphere.
"The hydrogen isotopic composition of the current atmosphere could be fixed by a quasi-steady-state process that involves rapid loss of hydrogen to space and the sublimation from a widespread ice layer," said coauthor John Jones, a JSC experimental petrologist and member of NASA's Mars Curiosity rover team.
Curiosity's observations in a lakebed, in an area called Mount Sharp, indicate Mars lost its water in a gradual process over a significant period of time.
"In the absence of returned samples from Mars, this study emphasizes the importance of finding more Martian meteorites and continuing to study the ones we have with the ever-improving analytical techniques at our disposal," said co-author Conel Alexander, a cosmochemist at the Carnegie Institution for Science.

I remember that as a child I was told that all the water on Mars could fill the Great Salt Lake.
That statement was true/false. Yes perhaps if you condensed all the apparent water on Mars, then it would fill the Great Salt Lake.
But the Metrology for that was quite stinky. I think we still have re-considerations to make now as well.

Goodnight!

OverDone.

Last edited by Void (2018-08-13 21:46:15)

SpaceNut · 2018-10-22 20:12:55

Water, water everywhere and now we have the tools for man to use in finding it.

ScanMars Demonstrates Water Detection Device for Astronauts on Mars

Analogue astronauts have successfully trialed a radar that could help future Mars explorers identify where to dig for water.
ScanMars is an Italian experiment that was used to identify subsurface water features in the Mars-like Dhofar region of Oman during the AMADEE-18 analogue mission in February 2018.
AMADEE-18 mission aimed to prepare for future human exploration of Mars by conducting experiments in different fields ranging from engineering to astrobiology and from geophysics to life sciences. After being trained on how to use ScanMars at the Austrian Space Forum's facilities in Innsbruck, analogue astronauts tested the radar over four areas in Dhofar with different geologic characteristics. In total, they collected a total of about 70,0000 radar echoes and 1.4 kilometres of profiles to a depth of 5 metres.

SpaceNut · 2018-10-22 20:28:41

Now all we need is the means to get there...

Frosty Crater On Mars

south-facing rim of a pit crater at 68°S in the Sisyphi Planum region of Mars

louis · 2018-10-23 01:28:38

Not sure this is the holy grail: "In colder months carbon dioxide and some water vapour freezes on the surface." So only "some" of it is water ice. How much? Do we know? It doesn't say.

Also, 68 degrees is pretty far south - there will be a downside in terms of PV energy generation. And the further south you go the colder the operating temperatures, which could impact on a mission.

SpaceNut wrote:

Now all we need is the means to get there...
Frosty Crater On Mars
http://www.esa.int/var/esa/storage/imag … mage_2.png
south-facing rim of a pit crater at 68°S in the Sisyphi Planum region of Mars

louis · 2018-10-23 01:32:34

And is this really an advance? Unless you can provide 100% assurance that water is there, it's not much use for Mission One, and for later missions, one hopes clear water sources will be identified visually by humans on Mars. It sounds like ground radar used in archaeological digs. I'd have thought what you really need is a water molecule "sniffer".

SpaceNut wrote:

Water, water everywhere and now we have the tools for man to use in finding it.
ScanMars Demonstrates Water Detection Device for Astronauts on Mars
Analogue astronauts have successfully trialed a radar that could help future Mars explorers identify where to dig for water.
ScanMars is an Italian experiment that was used to identify subsurface water features in the Mars-like Dhofar region of Oman during the AMADEE-18 analogue mission in February 2018.
AMADEE-18 mission aimed to prepare for future human exploration of Mars by conducting experiments in different fields ranging from engineering to astrobiology and from geophysics to life sciences. After being trained on how to use ScanMars at the Austrian Space Forum's facilities in Innsbruck, analogue astronauts tested the radar over four areas in Dhofar with different geologic characteristics. In total, they collected a total of about 70,0000 radar echoes and 1.4 kilometres of profiles to a depth of 5 metres.

SpaceNut · 2018-10-23 17:26:05

Attach the radar unit to a few dozen so purpose rovers that are landed in peak interest points to land humans at and get then data we need for making it safe for man to go.

No reason to have a pricey piece of cutting edge technology...

Add to the units a future beacon ready to go for when we try to do percise landings and leave a cube sat or two in orbit to test out gps...

Since we need it to work long term then its going to be nuclear powered most likely.

SpaceNut · 2018-11-04 22:14:06

Water cycle along the northern rim of Hellas Basin throughout Mars' history

Void · 2021-07-18 08:45:10

More underground lakes on Mars.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=la … &FORM=VIRE

They do not say where, but they say that there are lots of these features.

In the video, it is disclosed that these may not be liquid water but they look like they should be, however they are
puzzled as to how they stay liquid.

Possibilities I can think of:

1) They are not liquid water. I wonder if a mix of water and Hydrogen Peroxide, with CO2 and salts in the mix. A
mixture of water and Hydrogen Peroxide can have a freezing temperature as low as -55 Degrees C. Adding CO2 and
salts? I don't know if that would drop it some more. There is a notion that dust storms may generate Hydrogen
Peroxide on Mars. Interestingly, there is some notion that early life on Earth may have been adapted to such a mix.

https://biox.stanford.edu/highlight/sta … osynthesis.
Quote:

Zare speculates that this ancient and widespread chemical reaction could have even provided a source of oxygen for early life (since hydrogen peroxide breaks down into water and oxygen molecules) before the appearance of organisms that could produce oxygen themselves through photosynthesis.

2) They may be heated by geothermal heat. Anton's video does indicate that for the south pole there does not seem to be
volcanism. However I "Speculate" that the Martian crust is much more deeply fractured than the Earth, and it may have
old cave/aquifer systems that go deep down where there could be heat. In such a case, the lakes would be fed by springs
of fluid welling up from deep below with heat.

3) Ground Currents. If there is a network of fluid ducts under the Martian surface, I speculate that at times electrical
ground currents flow through them and heat them up. Perhaps particularly during dust storm activities, and flares from
the sun.

Yes, a great deal of what I have placed here is very tentative, but by putting such speculations out there, perhaps
someone can think of how to find evidence for any of the above, or combinations of the above.

Done.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-05-30 02:47:10

Why Did Mars Dry Out? New Study Points To Unusual Answers
https://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Why_D … s_999.html

Mars once ran red with rivers. The telltale tracks of past rivers, streams and lakes are visible today all over the planet. But about three billion years ago, they all dried up - and no one knows why.

"People have put forward different ideas, but we're not sure what caused the climate to change so dramatically," said University of Chicago geophysical scientist Edwin Kite. "We'd really like to understand, especially because it's the only planet we definitely know changed from habitable to uninhabitable."

Kite is the first author of a new study that examines the tracks of Martian rivers to see what they can reveal about the history of the planet's water and atmosphere.

Previously, many scientists had assumed that losing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which helped to keep Mars warm, caused the trouble. But the new findings, published May 25 in Science Advances, suggest that the change was caused by the loss of some other important ingredient that maintained the planet warm enough for running water.

But we still don't know what it is.

...ite and his collaborators ran many different combinations of these factors in their simulations, looking for conditions that could cause the planet to be warm enough for at least some liquid water to exist in rivers for more than billion years - but then abruptly lose it.
But as they compared different simulations, they saw something surprising. Changing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere didn't change the outcome. That is, the driving force of the change didn't seem to be carbon dioxide.
"Carbon dioxide is a strong greenhouse gas, so it really was the leading candidate to explain the drying out of Mars," said Kite, an expert on the climates of other worlds. "But these results suggest it's not so simple."
There are several alternative options. The new evidence fits nicely with a scenario, suggested in a 2021 study from Kite, where a layer of thin, icy clouds high in Mars' atmosphere acts like translucent greenhouse glass, trapping heat. Other scientists have suggested that if hydrogen was released from the planet's interior, it could have interacted with carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to absorb infrared light and warm the planet.
"We don't know what this factor is, but we need a lot of it to have existed to explain the results," Kite said.

SpaceNut · 2022-05-30 08:24:23

mars gravity and atmospheric pressure is why mars lost its water due to the lack of a strong megospher

Void · 2022-05-31 10:36:14

The information of the last two posts, suggest that mostly "We don't know".

I will suggest this though for my 2 cents.

We don't know that much about out sun's behaviors in the past. We only know it's present behaviors, and we also have information about other stars that are thought to have been similar and are aging, so we can speculate on the future.

The sun may have been very active magnetically in it's youth. But so was volcanism for Mars. Even possibly a global magnetic field. But we don't know.

It might also have been possible that an impactor(s) may have splashed a great deal of Martian atmosphere off of the planet.

But is seems likely to me at this time that the presence of exposed ice, determining the amount of high clouds is currently a factor. This would be influenced by the amount of geothermal heat for the planet. The cooler the underground becomes the longer ice can be buried under sediments. Sediments could include volcanic materials, particularly explosive volcanism, crater ejecta, fluvial sediments, and air borne sediments as possibilities.

Also the amount of Hydrogen the planet was "Born" with. Hydrogen would most likely leak out of the planet at a faster rate earlier in it's history. If there we a process, that allowed the creation of Methane in the subsurface, then upwelling Hydrogen might be intercepted, perhaps by microbes, and then that consumed along with CO2.

Earlier in it's life then Methane would leak to the atmosphere at a faster rate, then in the now, where the permafrost is so thick and deep.

Where does the Martian dust come from?
https://releases.jhu.edu/2018/07/24/whe … ve%20found.
Quote:

The dust that coats much of the surface of Mars originates largely from a single thousand-kilometer-long geological formation near the Red Planet’s equator, scientists have found.

Quote:

Wind-carved ridges known as yardangs are the remnants of erosion. By calculating how much of the MFF has been lost over the past 3 billion years, the scientists could approximate the current quantity of dust on Mars, enough to form a 2 to 12 meters thick global layer.
Dust particles can also affect Martian climate by absorbing solar radiation, resulting in lower temperatures at the ground level and higher ones in the atmosphere. This temperature contrast can create stronger winds, leading to more dust being lifted from the surface.
While seasonal dust storms happen every Martian year (twice as long as an Earth year), global dust storms can form, happening about every 10 or so years.
“It just explains, potentially, one big piece of how Mars got to its current state,” said Lewis.
Other co-authors of the paper were Suniti Karunatillake of Louisiana State University and Mariek Schmidt of Brock University in Canada.
Lujendra Ojha was supported by the Blaustein Postdoctoral Fellowship at Johns Hopkins University. Suniti Karunatillake was supported by NASA-MDAP grant NNX13AI98G and the Louisiana Space Consortium grant NNX15AH82H.

The process of Mars cooling off would allow more and more water to be trapped as subsurface ice, which the dust layer and other sediments could cover. This would reduce the amount of exposed ice, and therefore the amount of water vapor that could get into the upper atmosphere.

The question of post #21 Quote:

"Why Did Mars Dry Out? New Study Points To Unusual Answers"

, is perhaps the wrong question. It should be more "How did Mars get Freeze-Dried?".

It is highly likely that certain atmospheric gasses have been absorbed into the ground by moisture, to be then bonded to regolith or even perhaps become clathrates. Even now it is believed that there are briny droplets in the regolith, and it is said that Hellas may have conditions for liquid water to some degree.

The mean atmospheric pressure of Mars being so close to that of the Tripple point of water, it seem suspicious of the possibility that the pressure is regulated by the withdrawal of atmosphere by that mechanism.

Certain gasses may have lives that I will try to speculate on. It is indeed speculation though.

Hydrogen: Free Hydrogen very likely leaves the planet easily if it is in the upper atmosphere. The deeps of Mars may still have a reservoir of Hydrogen that leaks to atmosphere however, but likely not at as fast a rate as was perhaps true in the beginning 1/2 Billion years. The asteroid belt started as behind the snow line for water, and there is still water ice in some of the objects, and also hydrated minerals. It seems likely that the asteroid belt and comets will have added Hydrogen from Water to the planet Mars over the history of the solar system. It may be possible that at times the solar wind pushes Hydrogen into the Martian atmosphere. That is an unknown.

Carbon: It seems reasonable to me that the Asteroid belt and other impactors may still add Carbon to Mars. Also there may still be occasional volcanism that may add it to the atmosphere. Perhaps some major impacts may also dig substances out of the ground, (But might also splash atmosphere away).

Oxygen: I am going to guess that the major contributor of Oxygen will be from water where it is split to Oxygen and Hydrogen, and likely the Hydrogen drifts off to space. But keep in mind that the asteroid belt and other impactors may still be adding water to Mars.

Nitrogen: Being a small component I guess it seems obvious that it gets removed more, and then stays removed. It is lighter than CO2 so that is logical that it might drift off of the planet, but the asteroids would add back much less as they have much more water and Carbon then Nitrogen I think, at least in this age. I suppose I could speculate further but it may be more accurate to say "I don't know". But it seems likely that it once captured into the ground does not much go back to the atmosphere.

Argon? I really don't know enough to speculate with any hope of accuracy.

As for the portion of atmospheric loss that was to space, it seems to me that we do not know.

Done.

Last edited by Void (2022-05-31 11:16:51)

SpaceNut · 2022-05-31 13:49:02

Moon has not seen water and its got dust levels better than a foot so mars silt covering is not as great as one might think.

The sun started in a planetary disk long before the planets form which the later is in 5 billion time frame but then again in another 5 billion we are going to be inside a red giant.

I am under the impression that the inner planets are cast offs from both saturn and jupiter during the period of time when they were much closer to the sun. They both have planet sized moons that could have become to large for saturn an n jupiter to hold onto while being closer to the sun.

Like you indicated mars became a freeze dried planet while mercury became the sun ripened with only earth and venus falling into that near just right zone.

each of the planets show the history of the suns growth.
Did our ancient sun go on a diet? Bands of martian rock could solve the ‘faint young sun' paradox; New study suggests rocks on Mars could hold a hidden record of the sun’s weight

Void · 2022-10-05 20:04:50

This is new to me..........
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=NA … M%3DHDRSC3
Quote:

NASA Reveals MAJOR NEW Discovery On Mars!
YouTube · 3,000+ views · 6 hr ago · by The Space Race

It sounds fairly real, strangely enough.

They think geothermal heat, I also speculate ground currents.

For instance, the Solar wind creates a Proton Aurora. Also, the dust storms and dust devils have electric properties.

A liquid solution including water can be conductive, particularly if it has salt/ions.

But it seems that we are looking for how a liquid could exist, they seem to think a liquid does exist.

Done

Last edited by Void (2022-10-13 10:36:00)

New Mars Forums

Announcement

#1 2018-07-25 11:03:53

Liquid water confirmed on Mars

#2 2018-07-25 13:29:58

Re: Liquid water confirmed on Mars

#3 2018-07-25 17:36:26

Re: Liquid water confirmed on Mars

#4 2018-07-25 19:03:40

Re: Liquid water confirmed on Mars

#5 2018-07-25 19:08:11

Re: Liquid water confirmed on Mars

#6 2018-07-25 19:13:15

Re: Liquid water confirmed on Mars

#7 2018-07-26 05:13:36

Re: Liquid water confirmed on Mars

#8 2018-07-26 06:25:20

Re: Liquid water confirmed on Mars

#9 2018-08-04 13:05:39

Re: Liquid water confirmed on Mars

#10 2018-08-05 10:51:58

Re: Liquid water confirmed on Mars

#11 2018-08-06 21:29:12

Re: Liquid water confirmed on Mars

#12 2018-08-13 12:05:58

Re: Liquid water confirmed on Mars

#13 2018-08-13 20:22:47

Re: Liquid water confirmed on Mars

#14 2018-10-22 20:12:55

Re: Liquid water confirmed on Mars

#15 2018-10-22 20:28:41

Re: Liquid water confirmed on Mars

#16 2018-10-23 01:28:38

Re: Liquid water confirmed on Mars

#17 2018-10-23 01:32:34

Re: Liquid water confirmed on Mars

#18 2018-10-23 17:26:05

Re: Liquid water confirmed on Mars

#19 2018-11-04 22:14:06

Re: Liquid water confirmed on Mars

#20 2021-07-18 08:45:10

Re: Liquid water confirmed on Mars

#21 2022-05-30 02:47:10

Re: Liquid water confirmed on Mars

#22 2022-05-30 08:24:23

Re: Liquid water confirmed on Mars

#23 2022-05-31 10:36:14

Re: Liquid water confirmed on Mars

#24 2022-05-31 13:49:02

Re: Liquid water confirmed on Mars

#25 2022-10-05 20:04:50

Re: Liquid water confirmed on Mars

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