Studies have shown that Mars liquid water can be supplied by mountain snow. According to media reports, the existence of liquid water on Mars is not a secret. According to the previous NASA Mars probe pictures, scientists studying Mars have suspected the runoff distribution of liquid water may come from the ancient peaks of snow. This information shows that Mars has been snowing in ancient times, its time point about 10 billion years ago. Various scientists have advanced studies related to the discovery of water on Mars in a concerted effort to further understand the Red Planet.
The research by Martín-Torres et al. found that there is not only liquid water on Mars but also a considerable degree of hydrodynamics. Although the liquid water on Mars has always been a topic of debate among scientists, the research pointed out that there are four special valleys on Mars, which exist from the surface runoff traces. They studied the mechanism of formation of runoff in the Martian Valley. In addition, the researchers also studied the possible climatic models on ancient Mars, such as setting up a new atmospheric circulation model to determine the conditions of the winter season in the Martian valley, from which the precipitation area on Mars can also be speculated (Martín-Torres et al., 2015). The researchers revealed that the groundwater sub-flush frost had sudden thaw episodes in the geologically recent past: A thaw phenomenon has recently affected these groundwater tables frozen at high latitudes. Because of the very low pressure (6 hPa) and the negative external temperature, this water, as soon as it came out, has both skidded down the slope, frozen and sublimated. This sublimation, contemporary of a gel, explains the very small size of these runoff figures. The causes and age of this thaw(s) are unknown.
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The team of researchers led by Massé found that more than half of the total amount of water on Mars was lost to space in the past 4.5 billion to 4.1 billion years by analyzing the Martian meteorites that fell to Earth. They also claim that the rest of the Martian water is mainly in the form of ice below the surface of Mars. The joint research group released a report indicating that the Earth's different generations of Martian meteorites contained hydrogen and deuterium (heavy hydrogen) ratio, asserting the loss of Mars water (Massé et al., 2016). Researchers point out that as water is decomposed by the sun into space, deuterium and other large quality atoms will be relatively more residual. The researchers are analyzing the mass of the Martian meteorites regarding hydrogen atoms and deuterium atoms in the proportion of changes in order to calculate the size of the early Mars water loss. They believe that in the next 400 million years, more than half of the Mars water today will be lost to the vast universe. Also, the team also believes that the existing ice on Mars is much more than previously speculated. Including the polar surface of Mars, the entire surface of Mars may also contain a lot of ice, the total of which is at least three times the previous speculation.
According to the Ojha team, the temperature (average of -50 ° C) and the pressure (6 hPa = 0.6% of the Earth's pressure) on Mars do not allow liquid water to exist on the surface, but only in the form of steam and ice. Mars atmosphere contains 0.03% water vapor. If this steam precipitated, Mars would be covered with a layer of ice 12 microns thick. Two permanent, thick caps are visible at the poles and store a quantity of water equivalent to that of the Greenland icecap. Each winter, a mixture of H2O frost and CO2 surrounds these permanent ice caps to fairly low latitudes; this thin layer of frost is sublime in the spring. The morphology of the craters shows that the subsoil permanently contains ice below a few hundred meters deep. Depending on the geothermal degree (estimated between 5 to 10 ° C / km - that of the Earth is 30 ° C / km), one can calculate that this water of the subsoil is liquid below a depth of 5 to 10 km (Ojha et al., 2015). The roof of the frozen water table is deep at the equator (about 500 m) because, at these low latitudes, the relatively high temperature (-20 ° C) causes a significant sublimation. Towards high latitudes, the temperature is increasingly low, and the roof of the frozen water table becomes progressively superficial. It becomes sub-flush towards 70 ° to 80 ° of latitude.
The different research groups have learned that the existence of this liquid water in the distant past assumes that the pressure and temperature of the time were stronger than today. A quick calculation shows that for the temperature to exceed 0 ° C, a much larger greenhouse effect is needed than the current effect (which only raises the temperature by + 5 ° C to -50 ° C instead of - 55 to -60 ° C that Mars should have due to its distance to the sun and its albedo). For an old greenhouse effect to be as high as the temperature above 0 ° C, it is necessary to assume a CO2 pressure is equal to or greater than 5000 hPa (5 times the current terrestrial pressure, 1000 times the current Martian pressure). Questions have been raised on how to explain the cooling and loss of atmosphere on the surface of Mars since 3.5 billion years. The cooling and the loss of atmosphere are interpreted in the following way: the low Martian gravity (0.4 times Earth's gravity) retained only imperfectly the atmosphere (C02, N2, H2O), which escaped gradually in the space. This gradual loss of atmosphere led directly to a decrease in pressure, and indirectly a decrease in temperature (by reducing the greenhouse effect). The researchers agree that there is need to study further whether such conditions can allow liquid water to exist on the surface of Mars.
References
Martín-Torres, F. J., Zorzano, M. P., Valentín-Serrano, P., Harri, A. M., Genzer, M., Kemppinen, O., & Goetz, W. (2015). Transient liquid water and water activity at Gale crater on Mars. Nature Geoscience , 8 (5), 357-361.
Massé, M., Conway, S. J., Gargani, J., Patel, M. R., Pasquon, K., Mcewen, A., & Vincendon, M. (2016). Transport processes induced by metastable boiling water under Martian surface conditions. Nature Geoscience , 9 (6), 425-428.
Ojha, L., Wilhelm, M. B., Murchie, S. L., McEwen, A. S., Wray, J. J., Hanley, J., & Chojnacki, M. (2015). Spectral evidence for hydrated salts in recurring slope lineae on Mars. Nature Geoscience , 8 (11), 829-832.
