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water on march
- The atmosphere of Mars is thin and compared to Earth barely even there, but it can still teach us about the history of the planet and its current status.
- The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, which is a project of the European Space Agency and the Roscosmos of Russia, recently detected a gas it had never found before.
- Hydrogen chloride, which requires specific conditions to form, was detected in the atmosphere, which raised many questions.
The Mars we see today is mostly dry, dusty and barren. Of course, there is water trapped in ice near the poles, and possibly melting that occurs during the Martian year, but in addition, there are very few clues about the potential rich and life-giving history of the planet. Projects such as the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, sent to Mars by the European Space Agency and the Roscosmos Space Group in Russia, are helping to pull back the curtain and reveal some of the secrets the planet still contains.
Now, in some new studies published in Science Advances, researchers using data from the Trace Gas Orbiter have revealed that they have found a gas they have never seen in Mars. The newly discovered gas, hydrogen chloride, seems to be the first halogen gas in the Martian atmosphere, linked to seasonal changes, but the discovery eventually raises more questions than it answers.
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The atmosphere of a planet may not seem like an extremely important thing to study, especially not in the case of a thin atmosphere like that of Mars. But while the atmosphere of Mars may not be enough to support life on its surface, it can still serve as an indication of what processes are taking place on the planet’s surface. The exciting part of the discovery of hydrogen chloride in the Martian atmosphere is that it suggests that water was (or still is) an important component of the planet’s climatology.
‘You need water vapor to release chlorine and you need the by – products of water – hydrogen – to form hydrogen chloride. Water is critical in this chemistry, “said Kevin Olsen, co-author of the research, in a statement. “We also see a correlation with dust: we see more hydrogen chloride when dust activity picks up, a process associated with the seasonal warming of the southern hemisphere.”
But what exactly does that mean? It’s still hard to say. Whatever the gas yields is apparently linked to summer in the southern hemisphere of the planet, but beyond that it is difficult to determine the chain of events leading up to its generation.
In the second paper, researchers reveal that measurements of the ratio of deuterium to hydrogen in the planet’s atmosphere indicate large losses of water throughout the planet’s history. This supports the idea that Mars was once rich in water and possibly even supported massive lakes, rivers and oceans on its surface.