Washington: A new research from Washington University in St. Louis suggests that Mars planet May be too small to hold large amounts of water.
The study’s findings were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Water is essential for life on Earth and other planets, and scientists have found substantial evidence of water in the early history of Mars.
But today there is no liquid water on the surface of Mars. Remote sensing studies and analysis of Martian meteorites from the 1980s suggest that Mars was once richer in water than Earth.
NASA’s Viking orbiter spacecraft — and, more recently, the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers on the ground — returned dramatic images of the Martian landscape marked by river valleys and flood channels.
Despite this evidence, no liquid water remains on the surface.
The researchers proposed several possible explanations, including a weakening of Mars’ magnetic field, which could have resulted in the loss of a dense atmosphere.
The study suggests a more fundamental reason why today’s Mars looks so different from Earth’s “blue marble.”
“The fate of Mars was decided from the beginning,” said Kuno wang, assistant professor of Earth and planetary sciences in the Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington, senior author of the study.
“The rock is likely to retain enough water at planetary size requirements, to enable habitability and plate tectonics, whose mass exceeds that of Mars,” Wang said.
For the new study, Wang and his colleagues used the element’s stable isotopes. potassium (k) To estimate the presence, distribution and abundance of volatile elements on various planetary bodies.
Potassium is a moderately unstable element, but scientists decided to use it as a kind of tracer for more volatile elements and compounds, such as water.
This is a relatively new method that diverges from previous attempts to use the potassium-to-thorium (Th) ratio collected by remote sensing and chemical analysis once to quantify Mars’ volatiles.
In previous research, members of the research group used the potassium tracer method to study the formation of the Moon.
Wang and his team measured the potassium isotope compositions of 20 previously confirmed Martian meteorites, which were selected to be representative of the bulk silicate composition of the Red Planet.
Using this approach, the researchers determined that Mars lost more potassium and other volatiles than Earth during its formation, but retained more of these volatiles than the Moon and asteroid 4-Vesta, Earth and Mars. than two very small and dry nodules.
The researchers found a well-defined correlation between body size and potassium isotopic composition.
“The reason for the much lower abundance of volatile elements and their compounds in individual planets than in primitive undifferentiated meteorites has been a long-standing question,” he said. Katharina Lauders, research professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of Washington, co-author of the study.
“The discovery of the correlation of K isotopic compositions with planetary gravity is a novel discovery with important quantitative implications for when individual planets gained and lost their instability,” Lauders said.
Wang said, “Marcian meteorites are the only samples available to us to study the chemical makeup of bulk Mars. The ages of those Martian meteorites vary from several hundred million to 4 billion years and record the volatile evolutionary history of Mars.” is done.”
“Through measuring the isotopes of moderately unstable elements such as potassium, we can estimate the degree of volatile reduction of bulk planets and make comparisons between different Solar System bodies,” Wang said.
“It is undeniable that there used to be liquid water on the surface of Mars, but how much water there once was in Mars is hard to determine through remote sensing and rover studies alone,” Wang continued.
“There are many models out there for the bulk water content of Mars. In some of them, early Mars was even wetter than Earth. We don’t believe that was the case,” Wang explained.
Zhen Tian, a graduate student in Wang’s lab and a McDonnell International Academy Scholar, is the paper’s first author. Postdoctoral research associate Piers Koefed is a co-author, as is Hannah Bloom, who graduated from the University of Washington in 2020. Wang is a Faculty Fellow at the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences at the University of Lauders.
The researchers noted that the findings have implications for the search for life on planets other than Mars.
Being too close to the Sun (or, for exoplanets, too close to its star) can affect the amount of volatiles a planetary body can retain. This distance-to-star measurement often occurs in indexes of “habitable zones” around stars.
“This study emphasizes that planets have a very limited size range to develop habitable surface environments, but not much water,” Kloss said. meager Study co-author, Center for Space and Habitability at the University of Bern, Switzerland.
“These results will guide astronomers in their search for habitable exoplanets in other solar systems,” Mazer said.
Wang now thinks that, for planets within the habitable zones, perhaps more emphasis should be placed on the size of the planets and routine consideration should be given to whether an exoplanet could support life.
“The size of an exoplanet is one of the parameters that is easiest to determine,” Wang said.
“Based on size and mass, we now know whether an exoplanet is a candidate for life
The study’s findings were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Water is essential for life on Earth and other planets, and scientists have found substantial evidence of water in the early history of Mars.
But today there is no liquid water on the surface of Mars. Remote sensing studies and analysis of Martian meteorites from the 1980s suggest that Mars was once richer in water than Earth.
NASA’s Viking orbiter spacecraft — and, more recently, the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers on the ground — returned dramatic images of the Martian landscape marked by river valleys and flood channels.
Despite this evidence, no liquid water remains on the surface.
The researchers proposed several possible explanations, including a weakening of Mars’ magnetic field, which could have resulted in the loss of a dense atmosphere.
The study suggests a more fundamental reason why today’s Mars looks so different from Earth’s “blue marble.”
“The fate of Mars was decided from the beginning,” said Kuno wang, assistant professor of Earth and planetary sciences in the Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington, senior author of the study.
“The rock is likely to retain enough water at planetary size requirements, to enable habitability and plate tectonics, whose mass exceeds that of Mars,” Wang said.
For the new study, Wang and his colleagues used the element’s stable isotopes. potassium (k) To estimate the presence, distribution and abundance of volatile elements on various planetary bodies.
Potassium is a moderately unstable element, but scientists decided to use it as a kind of tracer for more volatile elements and compounds, such as water.
This is a relatively new method that diverges from previous attempts to use the potassium-to-thorium (Th) ratio collected by remote sensing and chemical analysis once to quantify Mars’ volatiles.
In previous research, members of the research group used the potassium tracer method to study the formation of the Moon.
Wang and his team measured the potassium isotope compositions of 20 previously confirmed Martian meteorites, which were selected to be representative of the bulk silicate composition of the Red Planet.
Using this approach, the researchers determined that Mars lost more potassium and other volatiles than Earth during its formation, but retained more of these volatiles than the Moon and asteroid 4-Vesta, Earth and Mars. than two very small and dry nodules.
The researchers found a well-defined correlation between body size and potassium isotopic composition.
“The reason for the much lower abundance of volatile elements and their compounds in individual planets than in primitive undifferentiated meteorites has been a long-standing question,” he said. Katharina Lauders, research professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of Washington, co-author of the study.
“The discovery of the correlation of K isotopic compositions with planetary gravity is a novel discovery with important quantitative implications for when individual planets gained and lost their instability,” Lauders said.
Wang said, “Marcian meteorites are the only samples available to us to study the chemical makeup of bulk Mars. The ages of those Martian meteorites vary from several hundred million to 4 billion years and record the volatile evolutionary history of Mars.” is done.”
“Through measuring the isotopes of moderately unstable elements such as potassium, we can estimate the degree of volatile reduction of bulk planets and make comparisons between different Solar System bodies,” Wang said.
“It is undeniable that there used to be liquid water on the surface of Mars, but how much water there once was in Mars is hard to determine through remote sensing and rover studies alone,” Wang continued.
“There are many models out there for the bulk water content of Mars. In some of them, early Mars was even wetter than Earth. We don’t believe that was the case,” Wang explained.
Zhen Tian, a graduate student in Wang’s lab and a McDonnell International Academy Scholar, is the paper’s first author. Postdoctoral research associate Piers Koefed is a co-author, as is Hannah Bloom, who graduated from the University of Washington in 2020. Wang is a Faculty Fellow at the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences at the University of Lauders.
The researchers noted that the findings have implications for the search for life on planets other than Mars.
Being too close to the Sun (or, for exoplanets, too close to its star) can affect the amount of volatiles a planetary body can retain. This distance-to-star measurement often occurs in indexes of “habitable zones” around stars.
“This study emphasizes that planets have a very limited size range to develop habitable surface environments, but not much water,” Kloss said. meager Study co-author, Center for Space and Habitability at the University of Bern, Switzerland.
“These results will guide astronomers in their search for habitable exoplanets in other solar systems,” Mazer said.
Wang now thinks that, for planets within the habitable zones, perhaps more emphasis should be placed on the size of the planets and routine consideration should be given to whether an exoplanet could support life.
“The size of an exoplanet is one of the parameters that is easiest to determine,” Wang said.
“Based on size and mass, we now know whether an exoplanet is a candidate for life
.