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Water on Mars: The Story So Far

About one-fifth of mars was once underwater, raising the prospects for life..

Although the surface of Mars is presently cold and dry, plenty of evidence suggests that the red planet was once partly covered with water. Researchers have theorized that life might have evolved on Mars when it was wet, and life could even be there now, hidden in subterranean aquifers.

“On Earth, water means life,” said Alberto Fairen, an astrobiologist at the Center of Astrobiology in Spain and Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. “The surface of Mars today is extremely dry, but there are lots of clues pointing to a much wetter past. Evidence for past water may be the clue to follow to find extinct life on Mars and if some of that water still persists on Mars today, then for sure the prospects to find extant life go up.”

Water on Mars also has important implications for research areas at NASA beyond the work of the NASA Astrobiology Program. Even if life no longer lives on Mars, or never existed in the first place, water could still prove vital to future life on Mars in the form of human colonies on the red planet. Water is useful not only for drinking, but also to shield against radiation, and as fuel when it is split into hydrogen and oxygen. The prospects of past, present and future life on Mars means that much research at NASA concerning the red planet concentrates on its water.

For decades, abundant research has suggested that rivers, lakes and seas once covered Mars billions of years ago. For example, in 2015, maps of water in the martian atmosphere suggested that Mars might once have had enough water to cover up to a fifth of the planet. In addition, in a different 2015 study, researchers noted that the shape of some martian pebbles suggests they once rolled dozens of miles down a river, hinting that ancient martian waterways were stable and not merely fleeting streams.

Analysis of layers of martian rock suggest that earlier, deeper layers were likely created when Mars had abundant, fresher water, while later layers closer to the surface suggest “an arid planet with just pools of brines, and finally the hyper-arid desert we see today,” Fairen said.

Most of the water on Mars today is likely frozen away in its polar caps. If all this water ice were to melt, estimates suggest that a sphere the size of the red planet might be covered in about 100 feet (30 meters) of water, said Suniti Karunatillake, a planetary scientist at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

Frozen water may not just exist at high latitudes at the martian poles, but also at mid-latitudes. For example, in 2015, scientists discovered that a giant slab of ice as big as California and Texas combined is buried just beneath the surface of Mars between its equator and north pole and covered in protective layers of dust.

Mars also has water in the form of hydrated minerals — that is, minerals that have water chemically bound to them. Future crewed missions to Mars could extract this water by heating the hydrated minerals.

There are several types of hydrated minerals on Mars from clays and carbonates to a great diversity of sulfates and chlorides, Fairen said.

“Clays and carbonates may suggest the presence of significant amounts of water, and this water could have been good for biology as it shouldn’t have been too acidic or too salty,” he said. “Clays and carbonates usually appear associated with impact craters, canyons and faults, suggesting that they are very ancient and maybe formed by underground processes and were eventually exposed on the surface by erosion.”

In contrast, sulfates and chlorides only required “minor amounts of water for their formation, generally salty and acidic,” Fairen said. Still, although sulfates and chlorides therefore might not suggest an abundance of water, “microorganisms on Earth can also thrive in such environments — what we call ‘extremophiles.’”

“The big surprise in the past 15 years of exploration is that the inventory of water on Mars is much greater than we had thought,” said Michael Meyer, an astrobiologist and lead scientist of NASA ’s Mars Exploration Program. “We have it at the poles and we’re seeing it at mid-latitudes.”

Right now, the surface of Mars is now extremely arid because the air is too thin for liquid water to last for long. The red planet’s atmospheric pressure is just roughly 1/100th of Earth’s and in such thin air water easily boils. However, dark, narrow lines on martian slopes hint that water could run down these formations regularly.

These dark streaks — known as recurring slope lineae, or RSL — favor steep slopes in nearly dust-free regions of Mars, said Alfred McEwen, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona in Tucson. He noted that RSL are abundant in northern sites such as Valles Marineris, although southern hemisphere sites also host them.

A 2016 paper suggested that RSL are driven by tiny amounts of brines, or salty water, mixed with soil, Karunatillake said. Salt lowers the boiling temperature of water, helping it stay liquid even on Mars.

However, these recent findings also suggested that less water is needed to create RSL than previously assumed. Moreover, this water may be very short-lived, and therefore not an ideal environment for any microorganisms that may exist on Mars.

Instead, the best place to find significant amounts of water on Mars may be in subterranean aquifers. Analysis of martian meteorites such as NWA7034 — martian rocks that landed on Earth after they were blasted off the red planet by cosmic impacts — hint at aquifers in the martian crust, Karunatillake said.

“The obvious place of choice on Mars is the subsurface, if one is at all interested in liquid water,” Meyer said. “In theory, deep down, Mars is warm enough to keep water liquid, and water will naturally flow down there and collect.”

Since Mars has a surface gravity of a little more than one-third Earth’s, its crust is less dense and more porous than that of Earth. Previous research suggested that this means that more water can leak underground. “I consider it likely that there are deep pockets of water in the martian crust not yet detected,” McEwen said.

However, “these are not shallow aquifers,” McEwen said. Karunatillake concurred, noting that these subterranean aquifers may reside miles below the surface. Volcanic outgassing of water vapor from the martian mantle may intermittently replenish these aquifers, Karunatillake said.

Lava tubes, which are natural tunnels within solidified lava, might host subterranean aquifers, Karunatillake said. For instance, there may be lava tubes at or near the volcano Arsia Mons on the Tharsis bulge near the equator of the planet Mars. “Given how deeply lava tubes may go, they might be analogous in a distant sense to the kind of aquifers we see in Hawaii,” Karunatillake said. “Lava tube environments might also have geothermal heat sources that could drive temperatures high enough to keep water liquid.”

Deep cave systems might also host subterranean aquifers, Karunatillake said. Valles Marineris, a system of canyons that runs along the martian surface east of the Tharsis bulge, possesses a variety of sulfates like some areas on Earth that host cave systems do. “These caves might have trapped liquid water,” Karunatillake said. “They could create a stable environment that could help life evolve, if it was present.”

If subterranean aquifers of liquid water do exist on Mars, Karunatillake recommends ground-penetrating radar campaigns focusing on areas where there is evidence for ancient water-bearing aquifer-driven floods. Such targets may include sites where previous research suggested there is subterranean ice, “given how thick ice layers can cap liquid beneath them in the presence of geothermal energy,” Karunatillake said.

“Although our assets in orbit around Mars haven’t found any subterranean aquifers, there’s a sneaking suspicion we’re only seeing the upper kilometer or so, because radar’s a challenge,” Meyer said.

Ultimately, shedding light on the evolution of water on Mars could yield insights into Earth and other planets, Karunatillake said. Plate tectonics and other fundamental geological activity on Earth are linked with its oceans and on chemically-bound water in the mantle, and understanding the history of water on Mars could help reveal how it influenced the red planet’s geology. “This has a deep relevance to whether a biosphere could ever arise on Mars, or whether Earth-like life would be limited to isolated pockets, if at all,” Karunatillake said.

“Mars and Earth were once more like each other,” Meyer said. “We can look at Mars to test if we understand similar processes on Earth as much as we think we do. You can ask questions like, ‘Did life get started there, and if it did, what was it like, and if it didn’t, what was missing.’ The problem with answering those questions on Earth is that a lot of the early record of life on Earth has been erased, so Mars might be the key to helping answer those questions.”

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Jason Davis • Oct 25, 2022

Your guide to water on Mars

Mars isn't the best place to quench your thirst, although it might have been a few billion years ago.

The red planet once had a global ocean, rivers, and lakes. Then, the solar wind — charged particles from the Sun — stripped away the Martian atmosphere. As the planet’s protective shield faded, all liquid water on the surface evaporated into space, merged with minerals, or fled underground to become water ice.

So where is all the leftover Martian water today? How does knowing where it is help scientists and would-be explorers?

The locations of Martian water are good places to search for past or even present life. Additionally, since it takes supply ships several months to travel between Earth and Mars, it behooves Martian astronauts to know where to find water that can be converted to rocket fuel, air, and drinking water.

Martian lakes?

A body of liquid water on Mars such as a lake would be a precious resource — and an area of deep scientific interest.

In 2018, scientists announced they had possibly found such a reservoir beneath Mars’ south polar cap. The European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft used its radar to detect bright reflections coming from beneath the polar cap, indicating a potential subsurface lake.

On Earth, a similar body of water named Lake Vostok is buried 3.7 kilometers (2 miles) beneath Antarctica. Lake Vostok would ordinarily be too cold to stay liquid, but its high salt content keeps it from freezing. The lake is also chock-full of organisms .

Could something similar be happening on Mars? In order to keep from freezing, a lake beneath Mars’ south polar cap would have to be extremely salty, and possibly get some additional heating help from volcanic activity.

In 2021, scientists announced Mars Express had discovered more, similar bright spots at the south pole. Some are very close to the surface, where temperatures plunge to a frigid -63 degrees Celsius (-81 degrees Fahrenheit). No salty water could stay liquid in such a frigid environment.

In September 2022, two papers released within three days of each other offered conflicting support for and against the original Mars Express findings. One paper said the bright signal could have been caused by a very specific layering of minerals and frozen carbon dioxide, rather than liquid water.

Another paper took a closer look at the topography of the region using data from NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, which operated at Mars from 1997 to 2006. That paper said the terrain above the theorized Martian lake resembled regions seen above subsurface Earth lakes.

Small-scale liquid water

Another long-standing Martian water debate surrounds the 2015 detection of liquid water flowing down Martian slopes . Known as Recurring Slope Lineae, or RSL, the flows appear during warm seasons and fade during cool seasons. The excitement cooled off as alternative RSL theories emerged, including one that said sand, not water , was causing the flows.

Janice Bishop, a senior research scientist at the SETI Institute and NASA's Ames Research Center, thinks the answer may lie somewhere in between. She led a team that concluded salty water ice just beneath the surface may be melting and creating a slushy mix that flows down Martian slopes.

“I feel very confident about the microscale liquid-like water in some permafrost regions of Mars,” she told The Planetary Society.

If you can’t fill up your Martian canteen with liquid water, your next best bet may be water ice.

"Ground ice is the best material to access for water resources on Mars, and surveying to understand its full extent, even when shallowly buried, is a key future measurement,” said Bethany Ehlmann, a professor of planetary science at the California Institute of Technology and the president of The Planetary Society.

Mars has approximately 5 million cubic kilometers (1.2 million cubic miles) of ice at or near the planet’s surface. Most lies in the planet’s northern and southern regions . That’s inconvenient, because it’s much easier to land and operate a spacecraft closer to the equator , where temperatures are warmer, the atmosphere is thicker in lower elevations, and the planet spins faster, making it easier to launch a rocket on a return trip to Earth.

In the Martian mid-latitudes between the equator and poles, an explorer might encounter ice buried less than a meter beneath the surface, and in some cases under just a light dusting of Martian soil. NASA’s Phoenix lander showed just how easy it is to find ice in this region in 2008.

The snow-white Martian polar caps are actually sheets of water ice and dust, stacked on top of each other like a layer cake. The cake’s frosting is a seasonal sheet of carbon dioxide — essentially dry ice. During each pole’s summer, the carbon dioxide sublimates, turning directly from a solid to a gas and producing Martian clouds. In winter, the carbon dioxide snows back onto the ice and dust layers, re-frosting the polar cake.

Water locked in minerals

Mars is rich in minerals that formed in water, and in some cases still hold water. These aptly named hydrated minerals can be found around the planet, as shown in maps made using data from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the European Space Agency’s Mars Express .

Knowing the location of these minerals is important for unpacking the planet’s watery history. Just like Earth, Mars likely got its water from asteroids and comets that bombarded its surface. Conditions may have been right for the red planet to be habitable from 4.1 to 3 billion years ago.

During that time, life could have taken hold in global oceans, rivers, and lakes. Liquid water may have flowed even longer, up until about 2 billion years ago , as evidenced by salty deposits left behind when the last of the planet’s water dried up.

Hydrated minerals are an important target for NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance rovers. In September 2022 Perseverance investigated a rock formed by mud and sand as the lake in Jezero Crater evaporated. Curiosity, meanwhile, is exploring a region of Gale Crater thought to have formed as the crater’s lake was drying out, leaving behind salty minerals called sulfates. Both rovers are keeping an eye out for organics, which are tied to life as we know it, while Perseverance is storing samples for future return to Earth .

Harvesting and using the water

Water on Mars is scientifically interesting. It can also be used as a resource.

Missions similar to Mars Sample Return , which requires a rocket to launch from the surface of Mars, could fuel up on the red planet rather than ferrying heavy propellant from Earth. This could be even more practical for human missions, which will require larger rockets. Humans could also harvest Martian water for drinking water and breathable air.

In some regions where water ice lies just beneath the surface, it might only take a shovel, as demonstrated by Phoenix . But would-be miners beware: a block of harvested ice might be full of impurities that need to be filtered.

“A scoop of the surface material could be defrosted and the water captured, but it would not be pure water or even mostly water,” said Bishop.

If the ice is deeper, would-be Martians could utilize a system similar to one demonstrated in Antarctica that drills through the ground and then lowers a heat probe to melt the ice. The resulting water is then pumped back to the surface.

What about all that water locked in hydrated minerals? Among the proposed methods of extracting water from rocks includes microwaves and the somewhat counterintuitive method of blasting minerals with water to extract more water. Some methods call for the use of small, autonomous robots that could mine water before humans arrive.

In any case, Bishop said that it would be a challenge to pull water from rocks.

“H2O and OH molecules that are part of a mineral structure generally would require some effort to remove,” she said.

What’s next?

In addition to perfecting mining technologies, we need to know exactly where Mars’ water is before we rely on it as a resource.

The Mars Ice Mapper , which is a NASA collaboration with the Italian, Canadian, and Japanese space agencies, could help. The mission would use high-resolution radar to create a detailed map of ice deposits across the red planet. This could point astronauts to places where they could collect ice cores . Such cores could contain a record of the planet’s history and preserve signs of ancient life.

Mars Ice Mapper might not be funded until NASA’s Mars Sample Return program is well on its way to fruition. The Perseverance rover has already collected more than a dozen small sample cores at Jezero Crater that formed where a Martian river once poured into a lake.

Just like on Earth, water on ancient Mars would have been a precious resource for any living thing. By studying it, we are uncovering the history of another world, preparing for future exploration, and potentially showing that we aren’t alone in the Universe.

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Why is there so little water left on Mars?

Directeur de recherche CNRS au Laboratoire Atmosphères, Milieux, Observations Spatiales (LATMOS), Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ) – Université Paris-Saclay

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Franck Montmessin received funding from the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche and from the Centre National d'Études Spatiales.

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Mars is known for its thin atmosphere, where CO 2 dominates and provides most of the atmospheric mass and pressure. In fact, the pressure is similar to that in the Earth’s stratosphere, which is a layer of the atmosphere, at more than 30km above the surface.

But what about water? Water on Mars is currently found on the surface as a layer of ice – several kilometres thick – at the north pole. It also appears as seasonal frost at the coldest times of the year, and in the atmosphere as vapour and ice. Nevertheless, the Martian atmosphere is extremely dry compared to Earth’s, with about 100 times less water. While precipitation on Earth results in water layers several centimetres thick, water that would precipitate on Mars would only form a thin film of less than a millimetre.

New data now provides a better understanding of why there is (almost) no water left on Mars.

Water escapes from the Martian atmosphere

The evidence suggests that Mars was not always the cold, arid planet we observe today. There is plenty of evidence of water on Mars’ surface in the distant past – about four billion years ago. At that time, liquid water flowed in great streams and stagnated in the form of pools or lakes, such as in the Jezero crater explored by the Perseverance rover, in search of traces of past life.

For liquid water to circulate and reside on the surface long enough to leave these marks, there must have been a radically different climate than the one we see today. Mars, Earth and Venus probably formed from the gradual accumulation of the same basic materials, which means that they must have had great similarities early in their history. But while Earth and Venus have retained most of their thick atmosphere, Mars, because of its small size and low gravity, has lost most of its atmosphere.

It is indeed this “loss of gas to space” that helps explain the current tenuousness of Mars’ atmosphere. This loss occurs very high in the atmosphere, above 200km, where molecules have already broken down into atoms and where the lightest ones, such as hydrogen, can be torn away from the weak gravity of Mars. Exposed to the energetic particles of the solar wind, Mars’ exosphere (the upper layer of the atmosphere) has allowed the equivalent of hundreds of present-day atmospheres to be lost to space.

New data from the ESA’s Trace Gas Orbiter mission , published in the journal Nature Astronomy , has shed light on the subtle mechanisms behind the loss of water to space.

Martian water has a very specific chemical composition. There are different “isotopes” of water – in the semiheavy water HDO, a hydrogen atom can be replaced by an atom of deuterium (D). (This is twice as heavy as hydrogen because it has a particle called a neutron in addition to the proton in its nucleus.) Measurements stretching back to the 1980s reveal that water on Mars has a relative concentration of deuterium six times greater than that on Earth. This is interpreted as the result of the loss of hydrogen, gradually leaving behind the heavier isotopes.

By extrapolation, the initial amount of water on Mars must have been at least six times greater than it is now, equivalent to a liquid layer of about 100 metres thick covering the planet. This shows how crucial the semiheavy water ratio is to understand Mars’ youth and to shed light on the hypothesis that it once had a warm and wet climate, a prerequisite for habitability.

These results from the Trace Gas Orbiter tell us how water and semiheavy water in the lower atmosphere reach the upper atmosphere and break down into atoms that can escape to space. In particular, it tells us more about the intermediate processes by which hydrogen and deuterium enter the exosphere.

For the past 20 years, two theories have suggested that hydrogen and deuterium cannot reach the exosphere in the proportions they do in lower atmospheric water molecules. The intermediate processes that could enable it, however, are condensation (water vapour turning into liquid water), which forms Martian water ice clouds, and photolysis, which breaks up the water molecule and releases a hydrogen or deuterium atom under the action of UV light.

What our recent study reveals is that condensation actually plays a minor role in the deuterium content of the exosphere. Thanks to the Trace Gas Orbiter’s Atmospheric Chemistry Suite instrument and its simultaneous measurements of H 2 0 and HDO, we were able to show where the hydrogen and deuterium atoms come from. That’s particularly important given that it is at an altitude and time of year on Mars where condensation has no opportunity to interfere with photolysis.

It turns out that photolysis is the dominating process: it produces the bulk of the atoms and dictates the isotopic fractionation of the hydrogen atoms that escape from the Martian upper atmosphere.

This new understanding of the processes that lead to the loss of water to space is a key milestone in attempts to trace the history of water on Mars. Only the Trace Gas Orbiter satellite is able to reveal the joint concentrations of H 2 0 and HDO. But the NASA satellite MAVEN is able to observe and characterise hydrogen and deuterium populations in the exosphere.

The concomitance of these two missions is bringing to life a new line of research. It may allow scientists to describe the complete path of water on Mars – from the lower atmosphere to the very upper atmosphere and into space. Only a detailed understanding of this pathway will allow scientists to develop reliable scenarios for the history of water over the last few billion years, and to corroborate the past habitability of Mars.

This article was originally published in French

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• 28 September 2020

Water on Mars: discovery of three buried lakes intrigues scientists

• Jonathan O'Callaghan

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Two years ago, planetary scientists reported the discovery of a large saltwater lake under the ice at Mars’s south pole, a finding that was met with excitement and some scepticism. Now, researchers have confirmed the presence of that lake — and found three more.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02751-1

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Using an imaging spectrometer on MRO, researchers detected signatures of hydrated minerals on slopes where mysterious streaks are seen on the Red Planet. These darkish streaks appear to ebb and flow over time. They darken and appear to flow down steep slopes during warm seasons, and then fade in cooler seasons. They appear in several locations on Mars when temperatures are above minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 23 Celsius), and disappear at colder times.

“Our quest on Mars has been to ‘follow the water,’ in our search for life in the universe, and now we have convincing science that validates what we’ve long suspected,” said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “This is a significant development, as it appears to confirm that water — albeit briny — is flowing today on the surface of Mars.”

These downhill flows, known as recurring slope lineae (RSL), often have been described as possibly related to liquid water. The new findings of hydrated salts on the slopes point to what that relationship may be to these dark features. The hydrated salts would lower the freezing point of a liquid brine, just as salt on roads here on Earth causes ice and snow to melt more rapidly. Scientists say it’s likely a shallow subsurface flow, with enough water wicking to the surface to explain the darkening.

“We found the hydrated salts only when the seasonal features were widest, which suggests that either the dark streaks themselves or a process that forms them is the source of the hydration. In either case, the detection of hydrated salts on these slopes means that water plays a vital role in the formation of these streaks,” said Lujendra Ojha of the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) in Atlanta, lead author of a report on these findings published Sept. 28 by Nature Geoscience.

Ojha first noticed these puzzling features as a University of Arizona undergraduate student in 2010, using images from the MRO’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE). HiRISE observations now have documented RSL at dozens of sites on Mars. The new study pairs HiRISE observations with mineral mapping by MRO’s Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM).

The spectrometer observations show signatures of hydrated salts at multiple RSL locations, but only when the dark features were relatively wide. When the researchers looked at the same locations and RSL weren’t as extensive, they detected no hydrated salt.  

Ojha and his co-authors interpret the spectral signatures as caused by hydrated minerals called perchlorates. The hydrated salts most consistent with the chemical signatures are likely a mixture of magnesium perchlorate, magnesium chlorate and sodium perchlorate. Some perchlorates have been shown to keep liquids from freezing even when conditions are as cold as minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 70 Celsius). On Earth, naturally produced perchlorates are concentrated in deserts, and some types of perchlorates can be used as rocket propellant.

Perchlorates have previously been seen on Mars. NASA’s Phoenix lander and Curiosity rover both found them in the planet’s soil, and some scientists believe that the Viking missions in the 1970s measured signatures of these salts. However, this study of RSL detected perchlorates, now in hydrated form, in different areas than those explored by the landers. This also is the first time perchlorates have been identified from orbit.

MRO has been examining Mars since 2006 with its six science instruments.

“The ability of MRO to observe for multiple Mars years with a payload able to see the fine detail of these features has enabled findings such as these: first identifying the puzzling seasonal streaks and now making a big step towards explaining what they are,” said Rich Zurek, MRO project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.

For Ojha, the new findings are more proof that the mysterious lines he first saw darkening Martian slopes five years ago are, indeed, present-day water.

“When most people talk about water on Mars, they’re usually talking about ancient water or frozen water,” he said. “Now we know there’s more to the story. This is the first spectral detection that unambiguously supports our liquid water-formation hypotheses for RSL.”

The discovery is the latest of many breakthroughs by NASA’s Mars missions.

“It took multiple spacecraft over several years to solve this mystery, and now we know there is liquid water on the surface of this cold, desert planet,” said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. “It seems that the more we study Mars, the more we learn how life could be supported and where there are resources to support life in the future.” 

There are eight co-authors of the Nature Geoscience paper, including Mary Beth Wilhelm at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California and Georgia Tech; CRISM Principal Investigator Scott Murchie of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland; and HiRISE Principal Investigator Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in Tucson, Arizona. Others are at Georgia Tech, the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and Laboratoire de Planétologie et Géodynamique in Nantes, France.

The agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin built the orbiter and collaborates with JPL to operate it.

More information about NASA’s journey to Mars is available online at:

For more information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/mro

Dwayne Brown / Laurie Cantillo Headquarters, Washington 202-358-1726 / 202-358-1077 [email protected] / [email protected] Guy Webster Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 818-354-6278 [email protected]

Water on Mars: Exploration & Evidence

Liquid water may still flow on Mars, but that doesn't mean it's easy to spot. The search for water on the Red Planet has taken more than 15 years to turn up definitive signs that liquid flows on the surface today. In the past, however, rivers and oceans may have covered the land. Where did all of the liquid water go? Why? How much of it still remains?

Observations of the Red Planet indicate that rivers and oceans may have been prominent features in its early history. Billions of years ago, Mars was a warm and wet world that could have supported microbial life in some regions. But the planet is smaller than Earth , with less gravity and a thinner atmosphere. Over time, as liquid water evaporated, more and more of it escaped into space, allowing less to fall back to the surface of the planet.

Where is the water today?

Liquid water appears to flow from some steep, relatively warm slopes on the Martian surface. Features known as recurring slope lineae (RSL) were first identified in 2011 in images taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The dark streaks, which appear seasonally, were confirmed to be signs of salty water running on the surface of the planet.

"If this is correct, then RSL on Mars may represent the surface expression of a far more significant ongoing drainage system on steep slopes in the mid-latitudes," a research team member told Space.com in 2012.

In 2015, spectral analysis of RSL led scientists to conclude they are caused by salty liquid water. [Related: Salty Water Flows on Mars Today, Boosting Odds for Life ]

"The detection of hydrated salts on these slopes means that water plays a vital role in the formation of these streaks," the study's lead author, Lujendra Ojha, of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, said in a statement . Vast deposits of water appear to be trapped within the ice caps at the north and south poles of the planet. Each summer, as temperatures increase, the caps shrink slightly as their contents skip straight from solid to gas form, but in the winter, cooler temperatures cause them to grow to latitudes as low as 45 degrees, or halfway to the equator. The caps are an average of 2 miles (3 kilometers) thick and, if completely melted, could cover the Martian surface with about 18 feet (5.6 meters) of water. 

Frozen water also lies beneath the surface. Scientists discovered a slab of ice as large as California and Texas combined in the region between the equator and north pole of the Red Planet. The presence of subsurface water has long been suspected but required the appearance of strange layered craters to confirm. Other regions of the planet may contain frozen water, as well. Some high-latitude regions seem to boast patterned ground-shapes that may have formed as permafrost in the soil freezes and thaws over time. 

The European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft captured images of sheets of ice in the cooler, shadowed bottoms of craters, which suggests that liquid water can pool under appropriate conditions. Other craters identified by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show similar pooling.

Evidence for water on Mars first came to light in 2000, with the appearance of gullies that suggested a liquid origin. Their formation has been hotly debated over the ensuing years.

But not everyone thinks that Mars contains water today. New research reveals that RSL may actually have formed by granular flows formed by the movement of sand and dust.

"We've thought of RSL as possible liquid water flows, but the slopes are more like what we expect for dry sand," lead author Colin Dundas said in a statement. "This new understanding of RLS supports other evidence that shows that Mars today is very dry."

That idea may have been washed away by the recent discovery of a possible subsurface lake near the Martian South Pole.

An underground lake?

Researchers made a big splash when they announced that Mars might be hiding a lake beneath its southern pole. The European Mars Express spacecraft used its Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS) to detect the proposed water. Ground-penetrating radar sent radar pulses to the surface, then timed how long it took for them to be reflected. The properties of the subsurface layers affect how long it takes for the beams to return.

MARSIS' investigation revealed that the Martian south pole is composed of multiple layers of ice and dust to a depth of about nearly 1 mile (1.5 kilometers) spread over a 124-mile-wide (200 km) region.  

"This subsurface anomaly on Mars has radar properties matching water or water-rich sediments," Roberto Orosei, principal investigator of the MARSIS experiment and lead author of the new research, said in a statement. 

MARSIS also revealed the presence of a subsurface lake among the pockets. According to the radar echoes, the lake is no more than 12.5 miles (20 km) across, buried nearly a mile beneath the surface. The scientists aren't certain of the lake's depth, but they have confirmed that it is at least 3 feet (1 meter) deep. According to the researchers, the lake must have salt to keep from freezing.

"This is just one small study area; it is an exciting prospect to think there could be more of these underground pockets of water elsewhere, yet to be discovered," Orosei said.

Not all researchers are as certain about the presence of liquid water.

"I think it's a very, very persuasive argument, but it's not a conclusive or definitive argument," Steve Clifford, a Mars researcher at the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona, told Space.com . "There's always the possibility that conditions that we haven't foreseen exist at the base of the cap and are responsible for this bright reflection."

More than three decades ago, Clifford proposed that Mars could harbor liquid water beneath its polar caps in the same way that Earth does. On Earth, lakes beneath the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are created when heat from within the planets melt the glaciers in patches. Clifford told Space.com that a similar scenario could happen beneath the Martian polar ice caps.

"The bright spot seen in the MARSIS data is an unusual feature and extremely intriguing," Jim Green, NASA's chief scientist, said in a statement . "It definitely warrants further study. Additional lines of evidence should be pursued to test the interpretation."

"We hope to use other instruments to study it further in the future," Green said.

Searching for an oasis

When Mariner 9 became the first craft to orbit another planet in 1971, the photographs it returned of dry river beds and canyons seemed to indicate that water had once existed on the Martian surface. Images from the Viking orbiters only strengthened the idea that many of the landforms may have been created by running water. Data from the Viking landers pointed to the presence of water beneath the surface, but the experiments were deemed inconclusive. [ Mars Explored: Landers and Rovers Since 1971 (Infographic) ]

The early '90s kicked off a slew of Mars missions . Scientists were flooded with a wealth of information about Mars. Three NASA orbiters and one sent by the European Space Agency studied the planet from above, mapping the surface and analyzing the minerals below. Some detected the presence of minerals, indicating the presence of water. Other data measured enough subsurface ice to fill Lake Michigan twice . They found evidence that ancient hot springs once existed on the surface and sustained precipitation once fell in some areas. And they found patches of ice within some of the deeper craters.

Impact craters offer a view of the interior of the red planet. Using the ESA's Mars Express and NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, scientists were able to study rocks ejected from the planet's interior, finding minerals that suggested the presence of water.

"Water circulation occurred several kilometers deep in the crust some 3.7 billion years ago," Nicolas Mangold, of the University of Nantes in France, said in a statement .

But orbiters weren't the only objects launched toward Mars. NASA's Curiosity rover is the fifth robot to land on the surface of the Red Planet in the last 15 years. Pathfinder, Phoenix, Spirit and Opportunity all took detailed measurements of the planet; all but Phoenix traveled across the surface collecting a treasure trove of information.

The probes dug into the ground, examining rocks and performing experiments. In 2008, Phoenix turned up small chunks of bright material that disappeared after four days, leading scientists to surmise that they were pieces of water ice. The lander went on to detect water vapor in a sample it collected and analyzed, confirming the presence of frozen water on the red planet.

Spirit and Opportunity, the twin rovers, found traces of water enclosed in rock. In a shining example of a problem becoming a solution, a broken wheel on Spirit scraped into the top of the Martian surface, revealing a layer beneath rich in silica that had most likely formed in the presence of water.

Curiosity has found yet more evidence of water flowing on ancient Mars . The 1-ton rover rolled through an ancient stream bed shortly after touching down in August 2012, and it has examined a number of rocks that were exposed to liquid water billions of years ago. 

Mars missions aren't the only way to search for water on Mars. Scientists studying rocks ejected from the Red Planet found signs that water lay beneath the surface in the past.

"While robotic missions to Mars continue to shed light on the planet's history, the only samples from Mars available for study on Earth are Martian meteorites," lead author Lauren White, of the JPL, said in a statement .

"On Earth, we can utilize multiple analytical techniques to take a more in-depth look at meteorites and shed light on the history of Mars."

Historical landforms

In addition to examining the relatively recent (geologically speaking) presence of water, the various missions have also studied the surface of the planet in a historical context. The river beds of Mars don't run wet today, but scientists can study them to learn more about the evolution of the planet. [ Photos: The Search for Water on Mars ]

The flatter northern plains of Mars may once have hosted an ocean , or possibly, as the planet cycled through dry periods, two. The more recent body of water would likely have only been temporary, seeping into the ground, evaporating, or freezing in less than a million years, scientists say. 

Riverbeds and gullies indicate that water ran, at least briefly, across the surface of Mars. A hundred times more water may have flowed annually through a large channel system known as Marte Vallis than passes through the Mississippi River each year, according to estimates. The gullies themselves are smaller, likely forming during brief torrential rainstorms when fast-moving water could have carved them across the land.

Curiosity found indications that at least one region of Mars, Mount Sharp, was built by sediments deposited in a lake bed millions of years ago, suggesting large pools existed on the planet for significant time periods.

"If our hypothesis for Mount Sharp holds up, it challenges the notion that warm and wet conditions were transient, local, or only underground on Mars," Curiosity deputy project scientist Ashwin Vasavada of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said in a statement .

On Earth, the land around rivers and lakes is wetter, made up of mud and clays . Such deposits exist on Mars as well, trapping water and indicating where larger bodies may have once existed.

Water on Mars may be doing something more than sitting pretty. A new study reveals that when the liquid boils, thanks to low pressures, it can make the sand levitate.

"Sediment levitation must therefore be considered when evaluating the formation of recent and present-day Martian mass wasting features, as much less water may be required to form such features than previously thought," the researchers wrote in their study, which was published in the journal Nature Communications .

Liquid gold

Water may seem like a very common element to those of us stuck on Earth, but it has great value. In addition to understanding how Mars may have changed and developed over time, scientists hope that finding water will help them to find something even more valuable — life, either past or present.

Only Earth is known to host life, and life on our planet requires water. Though life could conceivably evolve without relying on this precious liquid, scientists can only work with what they know. Thus they hope that locating water on celestial bodies such as Mars will lead to finding evidence for life.

With this in mind, NASA developed a strategy for exploring the Red Planet that takes as its mantra "follow the water." Recent orbiters, landers and rovers sent to Mars were designed to search for water, rather than life, in the hopes of finding environments where life could have thrived.

That has changed, however, with the flood of evidence these robots have returned. Curiosity determined that Mars could indeed have supported microbial life in the ancient past, and the next NASA rover — a car-size robot based heavily on Curiosity's basic design — will blast off in 2020 to look for evidence of past Red Planet life.

Additional resources

• Phoenix Mars Mission: Summary of Water on Mars
• NASA's "Follow the Water" Strategy
• NASA and the Case of the Missing Mars Water

Follow Nola Taylor Redd at @NolaTRedd , Facebook or Google+ . Follow us at @Spacedotcom , Facebook or Google+ . 

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Nola Taylor Tillman is a contributing writer for Space.com. She loves all things space and astronomy-related, and enjoys the opportunity to learn more. She has a Bachelor’s degree in English and Astrophysics from Agnes Scott college and served as an intern at Sky & Telescope magazine. In her free time, she homeschools her four children. Follow her on Twitter at @NolaTRedd

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New Images Suggest Present-Day Sources of Liquid Water on Mars 

In what could turn out to be a landmark discovery in the history of Mars exploration, imaging scientists using data from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft have recently observed features that suggest there may be current sources of liquid water at or near the surface of the red planet.

The new images, available at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/pictures/mars or http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/june2000/ , show the smallest features ever observed from martian orbit -- about the size of a sport-utility vehicle. NASA scientists compare the features to those left by flash floods on Earth.

"We see features that look like gullies formed by flowing water and the deposits of soil and rocks transported by these flows. The features appear to be so young that they might be forming today. We think we are seeing evidence of a groundwater supply, similar to an aquifer," said Dr. Michael Malin, principal investigator for the Mars Orbiter Camera on the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft at Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, Calif. "These are new landforms that have never been seen before on Mars."

The findings will be published in the June 30 issue of Science magazine.

"Twenty-eight years ago the Mariner 9 spacecraft found evidence -- in the form of channels and valleys -- that billions of years ago the planet had water flowing across its surface," said Dr. Ken Edgett, staff scientist at Malin Space Science Systems and co-author of the paper in Science. "Ever since that time, Mars science has focused on the question, 'Where did the water go?' The new pictures from Global Surveyor tell us part of the answer -- some of that water went under ground, and quite possibly it's still there."

"For two decades scientists have debated whether liquid water might have existed on the surface of Mars just a few billion years ago," said Dr. Ed Weiler, associate administrator for space science at NASA Headquarters. "With today's discovery, we're no longer talking about a distant time. The debate has moved to present-day Mars. The presence of liquid water on Mars has profound implications for the question of life not only in the past, but perhaps even today. If life ever did develop there, and if it survives to the present time, then these landforms would be great places to look."

The gullies observed in the images are on cliffs, usually in crater or valley walls, and are made up of a deep channel with a collapsed region at its upper end (an "alcove") and at the other end an area of accumulated debris (an "apron") that appears to have been transported down the slope. Relative to the rest of the martian surface, the gullies appear to be extremely young, meaning they may have formed in the recent past.

"They could be a few million years old, but we cannot rule out that some of them are so recent as to have formed yesterday," Malin said.

Because the atmospheric pressure at the surface of Mars is about 100 times less than it is at sea level on Earth, liquid water would immediately begin to boil when exposed at the martian surface. Investigators believe that this boiling would be violent and explosive. So how can these gullies form? Malin explained that the process must involve repeated outbursts of water and debris, similar to flash floods on Earth.

"We've come up with a model to explain these features and why the water would flow down the gullies instead of just boiling off the surface. When water evaporates it cools the ground -- that would cause the water behind the initial seepage site to freeze. This would result in pressure building up behind an 'ice dam.' Ultimately, the dam would break and send a flood down the gully," said Edgett.

The occurrence of gullies is quite rare: only a few hundred locations have been seen in the many tens of thousands of places surveyed by the orbiter camera. Most are in the martian southern hemisphere, but a few are in the north.

"What is odd about these gullies is that they occur where you might not expect them -- in some of the coldest places on the planet," Malin indicated. "Nearly all occur between latitudes 30 degrees and 70 degrees, and usually on slopes that get the least amount of sunlight during each Martian day."

If these gullies were on Earth they would be at latitudes roughly between New Orleans, Louisiana, and Point Barrow, Alaska, in the northern hemisphere; and Sydney, Australia, to much of the Antarctic coast in the south.

The water supply is believed to be about 100 to 400 meters (300 to 1,300 feet) below the surface, and limited to specific regions across the planet. Each flow that came down each gully may have had a volume of water of, roughly, 2,500 cubic meters (about 90,000 cubic feet) -- about enough water to sustain 100 average households for a month or fill seven community-size swimming pools. The process that starts the water flowing remains a mystery, but the team believes it is not the result of volcanic heating.

"I think one of the most interesting and significant aspects of this discovery is what it could mean if human explorers ever go to Mars," said Malin. "If water is available in substantial volumes in areas other than the poles, it would make it easier for human crews to access and use it -- for drinking, to create breathable air, and to extract oxygen and hydrogen for rocket fuel or to be stored for use in portable energy sources."

"This latest discovery by the Mars Global Surveyor is a true 'watershed' -- that is, a revolution that pushes the history of water on Mars into the present," said Dr. Jim Garvin, Mars Program Scientist, NASA Headquarters. "To follow up on this discovery we will continue the search with Mars Global Surveyor and its rich array of remote sensing instruments, and in 2001, NASA will launch a scientific orbiter with a high spatial resolution middle-infrared imaging system that will examine the seepage sites in search of evidence of water-related minerals.

"Furthermore, NASA is in the process of evaluating two options for a 2003 mission to Mars, both of which could provide independent information concerning the remarkable sites identified by Malin and Edgett."

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Global Surveyor mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Malin Space Science Systems built and operates the camera system.

JPL's industrial partner is Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, Colo., which developed and operates the spacecraft.

For more information on the Mars Global Surveyor mission, see http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/

News Media Contact

Mary Hardin

(818) 354-0344

Water on Mars

Even in the clearest, bluest sky on Earth, there is still water vapour in our atmosphere. If you could condense all the water vapour out of the atmosphere above you, it would form a layer of water two centimetres deep. On Mars today, there is also water vapour in the atmosphere but it would create a layer just 10 micrometres thick.

As on Earth, this water is constantly moving through a cycle of condensation and evaporation. When it condenses, it falls to the surface. When it evaporates, it re-enters the atmosphere and is blown by the winds around the planet before condensing and starting the cycle over again. Regardless of the apparent paucity, the constant movement of water through the martian atmosphere has an important effect on the martian climate.

Mars Express carries three instruments, PFS, SPICAM and OMEGA, which allow planetary scientists to study the water cycle of Mars in unprecedented detail. With their ocean of new data, scientists are building a multifaceted story of the martian water cycle. It is strikingly similar to Earth in some respects and exotically different in others.

We took the chance to question some experts on this subject while they were at the Mars water cycle workshop in Paris, France.

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Mars water cycle workshop.

Water on Mars

Image: Dr. Ryan Anderson presenting to students at FUSD Knoles Elementary

To investigate connections between landforms on Mars to landforms on Earth, APW travels far into water education topics. Through a partnership with Flagstaff’s STEM City Full STEAM Ahead (FSA) program, APW is engaged in a year-long initiative with FUSD’s Shauna Cooper of Knoles Elementary to deepen science instruction in her fifth-grade classroom. To support the class's current unit on space science (and keep water education at the forefront), APW adapted a lesson from NASA that inspires curiosity and discovery using 3D models, utilized the NASA-funded NAU PLANETS activities, and brought a very special planetary scientist into the classroom!

“Water on Mars?” is a special lesson intended to spark curiosity. What do you already know about Earth’s landforms? What about Mars? Is there water on Mars? During the initial landform lesson, the class discussed the shaping of the planets by erosion, comparing water-shaped landforms on Earth to water-shaped landforms on Mars. The lesson also presented the tools used, such as remote sensing photos, earth satellite photos, models, core samples, and maps. Students brought the lesson home and compared a River Valley on Mars to the Rio de Flag, which runs adjacent to the school grounds.

Students researched water features and landforms on Earth while using their own 3D models. They explored erosion by water and wind and created their own river channels, alluvial fans, deltas, canyons, and streams. Students then compared Earth’s features to similar features discovered from remote sensing imagery on Mars, and surveyed images of features that appeared to be eroded by water flow, such as drainage networks and past floods.

The students had many questions, and thanks to our strong community STEM network, Anne Hamlin of NAU’s Center for Science Teaching and Learning and co-creator of PLANETS referred us to a special guest planetary scientist to help answer those questions. The class welcomed Ryan Anderson, PhD, who is a planetary scientist in the US Geological Survey Astrogeology Science Center and a science team member on the Curiosity and Perseverance Mars rover missions, to speak with the curious students!

During Dr. Anderson's presentation, students asked about the average days on Mars, the average temperature, what the atmosphere was like, and how tall Mars’ volcanoes were. They were curious about the distance traveled and if water was still flowing on Mars. 

Other questions included how the rover survives upon impact, and Dr. Anderson explained that the rover is constructed to project the location and path of landing, along with the weight and impact. Dr. Anderson offered great photography in his presentation, with images of the Martian surface and a video of the Curiosity rover landing.

The students made strong connections between the APW Water on Mars lesson and Dr. Anderson’s presentation. Students recalled our geology inquiries and connected to Dr. Anderson's lessons regarding the surface of soil and how scientists date the radioactive decay of rocks to determine the age of Mars. They learned about Mars craters and how the Curiosity rover navigates the craters. Students learned that there is vapor in the atmosphere that forms clouds and there is evidence of snow on Mars! What are you curious about?

For more information on the PLANETS STEM Activities:  https://planets-stem.org/planets-at-home/

A Laser Zapped the Rocks on Mars and Revealed a Long-Lost Water World

Evidence suggests the Red Planet once mirrored Earth’s blue oceans.

• Around four billion years ago, during its Noarchian geologic period, Mars was likely filled with oceans, rivers, and lakes.
• A new study, analyzing data from a 2017 soil analysis from Gale crater, discovered high levels of manganese, a surprising find as manganese enrichment on Earth often requires oxygen and microbes.
• The study theorizes that water percolation into soils along ancient waterways could’ve created these deposits, and they might’ve even supported ancient microbial life, much like oxidated states of manganese due on Earth today.

Water-filled oceans, meandering river deltas, varying seasons, and an insulating atmosphere are usually descriptors for Earth—the only known rock to support life in the solar system. But during the Noarchian, a period in Mars’ history some 4.1 to 3.5 billion years ago, these descriptions perfectly matched the fourth rock from the Sun. Back then, the not-so-red planet could’ve even supported life. In fact, Mars boasts the oldest known prebiotic, life-supporting conditions.

Of course, the Mars of today isn’t so hospitable—it’s atmosphere is nearly non-existent, riverbeds are dried up, and any water is now locked under Mars iron oxide-rich soil or CO2-filled ice caps. In other words, it isn’t a great place for humans, so luckily we’ve sent robots in our place to glimpse into our planetary neighbor’s geologic past.

“The Gale lake environment, as revealed by these ancient rocks, gives us a window into a habitable environment that looks surprisingly similar to places on Earth today,” ChemCam’s principal investigator Nina Lanza, said in a press statement . “Manganese minerals are common in the shallow, oxic waters found on lake shores on Earth, and it’s remarkable to find such recognizable features on ancient Mars.”

The piece of tech that’s central to the ChemCam is a high-powered laser that can deliver a dizzying 1 million watts of power into the area the side of a pin-head. While only providing this burst of energy for five-billionths of a second, it’s enough to excite electrons in the soil sample and the spectrometer “reads” the light, detailing the atomic makeup of the sample.

The puzzling thing about manganese is that, at least on Earth the enrichment process is sped up by microbes and oxygen—not exactly modern Mars has in spades.

“On Mars, we don’t have evidence for life, and the mechanism to produce oxygen in Mars’s ancient atmosphere is unclear, so how the manganese oxide was formed and concentrated here is really puzzling,” Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Patrick Gasda, lead author on the study, said in a press statement. “These findings point to larger processes occurring in the Martian atmosphere or surface water and shows that more work needs to be done to understand oxidation on Mars.”

It’s possible that manganese became enriched in these deposits as water percolate through soil adjacent to some ancient river or lake. Because oxidation states of manganese can be used by terrestrial microbes for energy, it’s possible that Martian microbial life similarly fed on these deposits.

Today, Earth stands alone in the Solar System for its remarkable ability to support life, but look back four billion years in the past, and Mars would’ve been the clear favorite for finding life.

Darren lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes/edits about sci-fi and how our world works. You can find his previous stuff at Gizmodo and Paste if you look hard enough. 

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Water on Mars

Jul 22, 2014

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Water on Mars. Origins of water. The impact of asteroids to mars surface. Polar caps of ice Subsurface finds of reservoirs of water. Possibility . * Organic and carbon compounds Nano fossils Geological changes Weather changes Co2 instead of H2o in liquid form.

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• probable evidence
• further exploration
• martin luther king
• general science full text

Presentation Transcript

Origins of water The impact of asteroids to mars surface. Polar caps of ice Subsurface finds of reservoirs of water

Possibility *Organic and carbon compounds Nano fossils Geological changes Weather changes Co2 instead of H2o in liquid form.

Discovery of the mineral hematite Mars Global Surveyor discovered a large exposure of the mineral in Eagle Crater. Opportunity was sent to this location for further exploration.

Opportunity lands on Eagle Crater Minerals identified and mapped by rovers. Among these hematite which often forms in the presence of water. Also Goethite which only forms when water is involved.

Blueberries Hematite inclusions discovered by Opportunity. Embedded in the rocks and were released over time by erosion. These blueberries are spread out evenly inside the rocks.

Victoria Crater Larger and deeper than Eagle Crater. Presence of sulfur-rich materials throughout study area which indicates acidic watery environments.

Columbia Hills It is located in GUSEV Crater. Spirit used its RAT to locate sulfur. The rock was named Peace after Martin Luther King. Probable evidence of past alteration by water.

Endeavour Crater Curiosity part of the Mars Exploration Project. There was clay with smectites that form in pH neutral water. This is evidence that the water was consumable.

Works Cited http://tinyurl.com/lpzqzyv accessed Jan. 28th, 2014. http://tinyurl.com/mvql56t accessed Jan. 28th, 2014. Mcewen, Alfred S.1. "Mars In Motion." Scientific American 308.5 (2013): 58-65. General Science Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 16 Jan. 2014. http://tinyurl.com/n3xjaky accessed Jan. 28th, 2014. Hubbard, Scott. Exploring Mars: Chronicles from a Decade of Discovery. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2011.Web. Barlow, Nadine G. Mars: An Introduction to Its Interior, Surface and Atmosphere. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Web.

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• Space and Astronomy

Where did the water that flowed on Mars over 4 billion years ago go?

Despite the 2018 discovery of a vast underground lake beneath the Martian ice sheet, scientists are struggling to find contemporary traces of liquid water on the Red Planet.

By  Vahé Ter Minassian

Time to 2 min.

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While the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn contain water, Mars remains dry. Despite dozens of space missions, the Red Planet has yet to provide convincing proof that it conceals significant water reserves beneath its surface.

Yet Earth's little cousin hasn't always been so secretive. Various studies have shown that a little over 4 billion years ago, it experienced a "watery" era when lakes, rivers and perhaps even oceans could maintain themselves on its soil. Branching valleys and ancient terrains rich in hydrated clays are evidence of this blissful period of abundance.

Subsequently, the loss of part of the Martian atmosphere led to a reduction in the greenhouse effect followed by a gradual disappearance of water. The question is how long this process lasted and under what conditions. This is what the American Space Agency's (NASA) Curiosity and Perseverance spacecraft have been trying to establish since their arrival in 2012 and 2021 in the Gale and Jezero craters. "Lakes occupied these depressions 3.5 or 3.6 billion years ago," explained Nicolas Mangold, a director of research at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) Laboratory of Planetology and Geosciences in Nantes. "By studying the sedimentary and clay deposits left by the former and exploring the ancient river delta that fed the latter, the aim is to determine whether the climate at the time was wet and cold, or dry and hot. The Perseverance rover is also collecting samples, to be brought back to Earth as part of the MSR mission [Mars Sample Return, NASA-European Space Agency (ESA)]. They should provide precise information."

For the moment, things are hazy. If water has flowed on Mars, where has it gone? Was it sucked up into space with the Martian atmosphere or did some of it remain on site, buried underground? Many teams around the world are working to find answers by searching for clues to its presence other than those offered by polar ice caps and glaciers.

Controversy among scientists

As water cannot remain in a liquid state for long on the surface of Mars, these investigations often consist of spotting recent traces of its passage using instruments placed in orbit. This opens the way to all kinds of controversy about how to interpret observations of this world, whose morphology is radically different from that of Earth. "Some of these controversies, such as those concerning gullies – ravines 1 or 2 kilometers long, discovered by the hundreds along certain landforms in the early 2000s – have finally been settled," said Susan Conway, a CNRS researcher at the Laboratory of Planetology and Geosciences in Nantes. Her team recently demonstrated in the journal Nature Communications that seasonal deposits of dry ice explain the phenomenon, and not water flows.

Other clues continue to fuel debate and even controversy among scientists. The nature of "equatorial dark flows," the background noise of radar signals suggesting the existence of an underground sea beneath the North Cap, the presence of possible channels in the ejecta of impact craters and the hypothetical formation of "rides" in areas of glacial retreat. If water exists on Mars, it is well camouflaged. Why not deep underground, frozen in the cryosphere? Or preserved in liquid form in aquifers, or inside the thin film of perchlorate brine that supposedly exists at the base of the permafrost that covers Mars at high latitudes? The Marsis and Sharad radars of the Mars Express (ESA) and MRO (NASA) probes have pinpointed promising regions. And when NASA's Phoenix lander dug a few centimeters into the frozen ground just after it arrived in 2008, it immediately uncovered blocks of water ice – a further reason for hypothesis and speculation.

Vahé Ter Minassian

Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr ; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.

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Things That Go Bump in the Night (on Mars)

You stand in Jezero crater, Mars, at a minute to midnight. By the light of the stars and Mars’s two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos, you can just make out the shape of the looming delta. Nothing moves; the wind tonight is too low to even push a sand grain over. All is peaceful and quiet. Then, out of nowhere, comes an alien, mechanical whirring noise... and a misshapen head rises up out of the darkness, its five eyes glinting menacingly.

But have no fear: this isn’t a ghostly monster or a vengeful Martian, but rather Perseverance going about its regular business!

In general, Perseverance carries out most of its activities during the daytime. This is partly because the rover needs light for taking images or driving using auto-navigation, but also because there is more power available. Once night falls, so do temperatures, which means that more power is needed to keep things warm, leaving less for science. However, you might be surprised by how much Perseverance does do at night.

For one thing, the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) continues to take weather data overnight. MEDA observes bursts of turbulence, winds linked to flows down the nearby crater rim, fluctuations in water vapor abundance, and nighttime variations in the amount of dust and water ice in the atmosphere above us.

The SuperCam microphone also regularly makes three-minute sound recordings at very high frequencies overnight, which tells us a lot about small-scale atmospheric turbulence.

The Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) also generally schedules its oxygen generation runs at night. This is largely because air temperatures are much lower then, which - because density is proportional to pressure divided by temperature - means the air is densest at night. That increases the amount of oxygen MOXIE can generate from Mars’s carbon dioxide atmosphere, and a recent MOXIE nighttime run timed to coincide with the seasonal peak in surface pressure produced 10.4 grams of oxygen per hour, the highest rate so far!

The Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals (SHERLOC) instrument also operates at night. This is because operating at night provides the least instrument noise and thus the most sensitive detections.

As for the five-eyed monster at midnight? Well, that would be the top of the articulated remote sensing mast getting into position, so that Mastcam-Z can image Phobos (see image) . This provides a measurement, using visible light, of the amount of dust in the nighttime atmosphere, which can be compared to similar measurements made by looking at the sun during the daytime, and to nighttime measurements of dust abundance made in the infrared by MEDA.

It’s a busy life! But in fact, Perseverance isn’t the only one working at all hours. Back here on Earth, rover operations shifts can start as early as 6am Pacific Time, which means that Mars 2020 team members based in Hawaii need to start work at 3am their time. On the other hand, rover operations can also start much later in the day and end in the late evening Pacific Time, which means that Mars 2020 team team members in Europe don’t get to go to bed until their morning. So at least Perseverance can take comfort in not being the only one working the scary night shift!

Written by Claire Newman, Atmospheric Scientist at Aeolis Research

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