Published 12:58 IST, November 30th 2020
Big dust storms may have been responsible for making Mars barren; reveals a new study
Scientists found that big dust storms in Mars stripped this planet of its natural water source. Here you will find some more information on this matter.
Mars, which is also called the twin sister of Earth, once had the proper environment for holding life forms. The NASA recently found that there was a presence of water on Mars. The whole report was published on NASA’s official website and e-journal. NASA JPL laboratory, the University of Arizona, found in 2017 that the red planet had thin water flows.
The recent discovery
Scientists were of the opinion that Mars once had one or two oceans in its early days, But, the water source gradually died and the planet became barren. A recent examination from the data recovered by the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution spacecraft or MAVEN found that the big duststorms are what caused this plant to go barren.
Such wild storms are not new on other planets of the solar system. This new finding is offering a new perspective on how Mars’ atmosphere changed with time and how the water source was lost.
Most of the water which flowed through the rivers and oceans in Mars aeons ago escaped to the outer atmosphere and it became a planet covered in dust. The research paper was published in Science magazine.
Scientists found that the dust storm was so powerful that it churned the water from the seas and the rivers, and the water molecules flew above the atmosphere and gradually escaped to space. The scientists also stated in the research that the water was directly transported to the upper layer of Mars’ atmosphere, from there it dissociated byions and produced atomic hydrogen.
The MAVEN spacecraft used its Neutral Gas and Ion MASS Spectrometer on the atmosphere of Mars to find out more. According to the paper published in the Science magazine, the collected data showed that the amount of abundant water varied in seasons. The water amount was highest in the southern summer and also increased sharply during the dust storms. For example, the 2018 dust storms caused a high amount of abundant water molecules on Mars' atmosphere. The scientists calculate that the water on Mars was transported like this for thousands of years and this also caused the evolution of Mars’ atmosphere.
A scientist at the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences told Science magazine that the escape process is an effective way to make Mars dry and barren. As this new fact is now known, scientists are possibly working towards finding more details about the mystery behind Mars’ present stage.
Updated 12:58 IST, November 30th 2020