Water On Mars
Water On Mars, Liquid water lurks just under the surface of Mars on cold winter nights, in keeping with new analysis.
The Mars Curiosity rover has found proof that once temperatures drop on cold winter nights, trace amounts of water from the atmosphere will intercommunicate frost, which might then be absorbed into the higher layers of the Martian soil and liquefied. The liquid water evaporates back to the atmosphere when sunrise, once temperatures begin to travel up once more.
Turning water from a solid (frost) to a liquid needs the presence of a selected variety of salt that scientists say may soften the frost, even in terribly cold temperatures (salt lowers the melting temperature of water, that is why it's place down on icy sidewalks and roads throughout winter). However, the authors of the new work say the little amounts of liquid salt water within the soil wouldn't be enough to support microorganism life. the intense temperatures would additionally build the atmosphere too extreme. [Photos: The rummage around for Water on Mars]
On the move
Dry as a bone — that is a way to explain the Martian landscape nowadays. though the world once hosted flowing rivers and big lakes (and remains home to water ice at its poles), nowadays it seems that every one the liquid water on the surface of the world has either been volatilised or frozen by the intense temperatures (although scientists have found that some water may be extracted from the Martian soil).
The new results counsel there's additional occurring beneath this desert than meets the attention.
Digging into the soil of the terrestrial planet, instruments on board Curiosity found a chemical referred to as Ca salt, a sort of salt. The authors say the salt absorbs frost from the soil surface, melts it, and creates a skinny layer of salty brine.
The liquefied water will then sink even lower within the Martian soil, intermixture with alternative salts. The addition of liquid water is sort of a set of wheels for these salts — it permits them to maneuver through the soil and relocate.
Curiosity has not found evidence of those salty brine layers. The authors of the new analysis combined analysis of the Martian soil, likewise because the atmosphere simply on top of the soil (humidity and temperature). The state of the perchlorates, the researchers say, suggests associate degree exchange of water between the soil and therefore the atmosphere.
Gale Crater lies near the Mars equator, the most well liked and driest region on the world. The analysis, that seems on-line within the journal Nature nowadays (April 13), suggests that these layers of brine is also even additional galore in regions of the world with higher humidness and lower temperatures.
Curiosity has already found signs that rivers once flowed into a lake that stood wherever the arid current of air Crater currently lies (as a lot of of a fifth of the world could are lined in water at one purpose, creating it a probably livable environment). These rivers left behind sediment deposits that contained, among alternative things, perchlorates and alternative salts.
"Very fine-grained sediments, that slowly fell down through the water, were deposited right at the terribly bottom of the crater's lake," aforementioned Morten Bo Madsen, professor and head of the Mars cluster at the Niels Henrik David Bohr Institute at the University of national capital and a author on the new study. "The sediment plates on very cheap area unit level, therefore everything indicates that the complete current of air Crater could are an oversized lake."
While the finding doesn't indicate that life will presently be found to a lower place the Martian surface, it demonstrates that liquid water is also hidden in associate degree otherwise parched landscape.
The Mars Curiosity rover has found proof that once temperatures drop on cold winter nights, trace amounts of water from the atmosphere will intercommunicate frost, which might then be absorbed into the higher layers of the Martian soil and liquefied. The liquid water evaporates back to the atmosphere when sunrise, once temperatures begin to travel up once more.
Turning water from a solid (frost) to a liquid needs the presence of a selected variety of salt that scientists say may soften the frost, even in terribly cold temperatures (salt lowers the melting temperature of water, that is why it's place down on icy sidewalks and roads throughout winter). However, the authors of the new work say the little amounts of liquid salt water within the soil wouldn't be enough to support microorganism life. the intense temperatures would additionally build the atmosphere too extreme. [Photos: The rummage around for Water on Mars]
On the move
Dry as a bone — that is a way to explain the Martian landscape nowadays. though the world once hosted flowing rivers and big lakes (and remains home to water ice at its poles), nowadays it seems that every one the liquid water on the surface of the world has either been volatilised or frozen by the intense temperatures (although scientists have found that some water may be extracted from the Martian soil).
The new results counsel there's additional occurring beneath this desert than meets the attention.
Digging into the soil of the terrestrial planet, instruments on board Curiosity found a chemical referred to as Ca salt, a sort of salt. The authors say the salt absorbs frost from the soil surface, melts it, and creates a skinny layer of salty brine.
The liquefied water will then sink even lower within the Martian soil, intermixture with alternative salts. The addition of liquid water is sort of a set of wheels for these salts — it permits them to maneuver through the soil and relocate.
Curiosity has not found evidence of those salty brine layers. The authors of the new analysis combined analysis of the Martian soil, likewise because the atmosphere simply on top of the soil (humidity and temperature). The state of the perchlorates, the researchers say, suggests associate degree exchange of water between the soil and therefore the atmosphere.
Gale Crater lies near the Mars equator, the most well liked and driest region on the world. The analysis, that seems on-line within the journal Nature nowadays (April 13), suggests that these layers of brine is also even additional galore in regions of the world with higher humidness and lower temperatures.
Curiosity has already found signs that rivers once flowed into a lake that stood wherever the arid current of air Crater currently lies (as a lot of of a fifth of the world could are lined in water at one purpose, creating it a probably livable environment). These rivers left behind sediment deposits that contained, among alternative things, perchlorates and alternative salts.
"Very fine-grained sediments, that slowly fell down through the water, were deposited right at the terribly bottom of the crater's lake," aforementioned Morten Bo Madsen, professor and head of the Mars cluster at the Niels Henrik David Bohr Institute at the University of national capital and a author on the new study. "The sediment plates on very cheap area unit level, therefore everything indicates that the complete current of air Crater could are an oversized lake."
While the finding doesn't indicate that life will presently be found to a lower place the Martian surface, it demonstrates that liquid water is also hidden in associate degree otherwise parched landscape.