{"id":3097,"date":"2015-03-06T07:11:07","date_gmt":"2015-03-06T07:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revoscience.com\/en\/?p=3097"},"modified":"2015-03-06T07:11:07","modified_gmt":"2015-03-06T07:11:07","slug":"nasa-research-suggests-mars-once-had-more-water-than-earths-arctic-ocean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/nasa-research-suggests-mars-once-had-more-water-than-earths-arctic-ocean\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA Research Suggests Mars Once Had More Water than Earth\u2019s Arctic Ocean"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"NASA<\/a>
NASA scientists have determined that a primitive ocean on Mars held more water than Earth’s Arctic Ocean and that the Red Planet has lost 87 percent of that water to space.
Image Credit: NASA\/GSFC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A primitive ocean on Mars held more water than Earth\u2019s Arctic Ocean, according to NASA scientists who, using ground-based observatories, measured water signatures in the Red Planet\u2019s atmosphere.<\/span><\/p>\n

Scientists have been searching for answers to why this vast water supply left the surface. Details of the observations and computations appear in Thursday\u2019s edition of Science magazine.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOur study provides a solid estimate of how much water Mars once had, by determining how much water was lost to space,\u201d said Geronimo Villanueva, a scientist at NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and lead author of the new paper. \u201cWith this work, we can better understand the history of water on Mars.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps about 4.3 billion years ago, Mars would have had enough water to cover its entire surface in a liquid layer about 450 feet (137 meters) deep. More likely, the water would have formed an ocean occupying almost half of Mars\u2019 northern hemisphere, in some regions reaching depths greater than a mile (1.6 kilometers).<\/span><\/p>\n

The new estimate is based on detailed observations made at the European Southern Observatory\u2019s Very Large Telescope in Chile, and the W.M. Keck Observatory and NASA Infrared Telescope Facility in Hawaii. With these powerful instruments, the researchers distinguished the chemical signatures of two slightly different forms of water in Mars\u2019 atmosphere. One is the familiar H2<\/sub>O. The other is HDO, a naturally occurring variation in which one hydrogen is replaced by a heavier form, called deuterium.<\/span><\/p>\n

By comparing the ratio of HDO to H2<\/sub>O in water on Mars today and comparing it with the ratio in water trapped in a Mars meteorite dating from about 4.5 billion years ago, scientists can measure the subsequent atmospheric changes and determine how much water has escaped into space.<\/span><\/p>\n

The team mapped H2<\/sub>O and HDO levels several times over nearly six years, which is equal to approximately three Martian years. The resulting data produced global snapshots of each compound, as well as their ratio. These first-of-their-kind maps reveal regional variations called microclimates and seasonal changes, even though modern Mars is essentially a desert.<\/span><\/p>\n

The research team was especially interested in regions near Mars\u2019 north and south poles, because the polar ice caps hold the planet\u2019s largest known water reservoir. The water stored there is thought to capture the evolution of Mars\u2019 water during the wet Noachian period, which ended about 3.7 billion years ago, to the present.<\/span><\/p>\n

From the measurements of atmospheric water in the near-polar region, the researchers determined the enrichment, or relative amounts of the two types of water, in the planet\u2019s permanent ice caps. The enrichment of the ice caps told them how much water Mars must have lost \u2013 a volume 6.5 times larger than the volume in the polar caps now. That means the volume of Mars\u2019 early ocean must have been at least 20 million cubic kilometers (5 million cubic miles).<\/span><\/p>\n

Based on the surface of Mars today, a likely location for this water would be in the Northern Plains, considered a good candidate because of the low-lying ground. An ancient ocean there would have covered 19 percent of the planet\u2019s surface. By comparison, the Atlantic Ocean occupies 17 percent of Earth\u2019s surface.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWith Mars losing that much water, the planet was very likely wet for a longer period of time than was previously thought, suggesting it might have been habitable for longer,\u201d said Michael Mumma, a senior scientist at Goddard and the second author on the paper.<\/span><\/p>\n

NASA is studying Mars with a host of spacecraft and rovers under the agency\u2019s Mars Exploration Program, including the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers, Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft, and the MAVEN orbiter, which arrived at the Red Planet in September 2014 to study the planet\u2019s upper atmosphere.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2016, a Mars lander mission called InSight will launch to take a first look into the deep interior of Mars. The agency also is participating in ESA\u2019s (European Space Agency) 2016 and 2018 ExoMars missions, including providing telecommunication radios to ESA\u2019s 2016 orbiter and a critical element of the astrobiology instrument on the 2018 ExoMars rover. NASA\u2019s next rover, heading to Mars in 2020, will carry instruments to conduct unprecedented science and exploration technology investigations on the Red Planet.<\/span><\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s Mars Exploration Program seeks to characterize and understand Mars as a dynamic system, including its present and past environment, climate cycles, geology and biological potential. In parallel, NASA is developing the human spaceflight capabilities needed for future round-trip missions to Mars in the 2030s.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A primitive ocean on Mars held more water than Earth\u2019s Arctic Ocean, according to NASA scientists who, using ground-based observatories, measured water signatures in the Red Planet\u2019s atmosphere. Scientists have been searching for answers to why this vast water supply left the surface. Details of the observations and computations appear in Thursday\u2019s edition of Science […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":3098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/15-032.jpg",673,673,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/15-032-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/15-032-300x300.jpg",300,300,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/15-032.jpg",673,673,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/15-032.jpg",673,673,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/15-032.jpg",673,673,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/15-032.jpg",673,673,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/15-032.jpg",673,673,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/15-032.jpg",570,570,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/15-032.jpg",600,600,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/15-032.jpg",600,600,false],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/15-032.jpg",490,490,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/15-032.jpg",360,360,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/15-032.jpg",65,65,false],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/15-032.jpg",640,640,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/15-032.jpg",96,96,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/15-032.jpg",150,150,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Amrita Tuladhar"]},"category_info":"News<\/a>","tag_info":"News","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}