Our cosmic neighbor’s been on quite a ride thus far; from being a target of imagination and scrutiny to being the prime destination for future space travelers, Mars has always been a source of great interest for humanity.
We’ve sent satellites and rovers out there, and perhaps humans are next on the launch itinerary too. We’ve found evidence of early volcanism on its surface, as well as the presence of outright organic molecules. All in all, we don’t seem to run out of new discoveries regarding our rust-red planet neighbor.
Some new research from Northern Arizona University (NAU) and Johns Hopkins University (JHU) seems to add yet another entry to the developing long list of findings, as scientists there found traces of water on Mars’ Arabia Terra, a region that lies in the Martian north and is also regarded as one of the oldest regions on the planet’s surface. The novel study, which follows in the footsteps of earlier findings about ancient flooding on Jezero Crater, was published in the journal Geology.
“We were specifically interested in using rocks on the surface of Mars to get a better understanding of past environments three to four billion years ago and whether there could have been climatic conditions that were suitable for life on the surface,” said NAU researcher and first author Ari Koeppel. “We were interested in whether there was stable water, how long there could have been stable water, what the atmosphere might have been like and what the temperature on the surface might have been like.”
The research team analyzed the Martian surface in this respect through the study of its surface temperatures. By operating on a concept known as thermal inertia, scientists can use the rate in which surface features on Mars gain and lose heat to gain insights on how dense that particular patch of land is. The slower it loses its heat, the denser the surrounding surface rock is, or so the authors believe.
With the help of satellites, Koeppel and team scanned Arabia Terra for temperature changes and evidence of erosion, as well as determining the conditions of nearby craters and the minerals that can be found in particular spots.
There, they found some interesting insights into Mars, in that Arabia Terra might not have had the chance to hold water for an extended period of time. Koeppel believes that while at first glance this might spell doom for anyone wishing to look for evidence of life in bodies of water that might not have stayed around for long, these results do bring with them more questions into Mars’ past.
Koeppel continued: “What are the conditions that could have allowed there to be water there for a brief amount of time? Could there have been glaciers that melted quickly with outbursts of huge floods? Could there have been a groundwater system that percolated up out of the ground for only a brief period of time only to sink back down?”
Koeppel and team believe there is much work to be done regarding their explorations into Mars, as they recognize that what they had just found was “just the tip of the iceberg.” “[We’ve] been studying Mars for a few decades now, and at this point, we have a huge accumulation of data. We’re beginning to study it at levels that are comparable to ways we’ve been able to study Earth, and it’s a really exciting time for Mars science.”
References
- Koeppel, A. H. D., Edwards, C. S., Annex, A. M., Lewis, K. W., & Carrillo, G. J. (2021). A fragile record of fleeting water on Mars. Geology. https://doi.org/10.1130/G49285.1
- Northern Arizona University. (2021, November 30). Planetary scientists discover brief presence of water in Arabia Terra on Mars. EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/936434
