{"id":39990,"date":"2020-11-20T12:37:59","date_gmt":"2020-11-20T12:37:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/?p=39990"},"modified":"2020-11-20T12:37:59","modified_gmt":"2020-11-20T12:37:59","slug":"farewell-to-water-on-mars-can-life-on-the-red-planet-become-a-farce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/farewell-to-water-on-mars-can-life-on-the-red-planet-become-a-farce\/","title":{"rendered":"Farewell to water on Mars: can life on the Red Planet become a farce?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mars has lost an abundance of water resources corresponding to a hundred-feet depth for billions of years due to dust storms and seasonal modifications, among subtler phenomena in lower layers, according to a recent study funded by the NASA\u2019s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (Maven) spacecraft mission.<\/b><\/p>\n

Shane W. Stone, a doctoral student in planetary science at the University of Arizona\u2019s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in Tucson who took part in the research, said for <\/span>NewScientist<\/span><\/i>: \u2018\u2018If not for these escape processes, we would have a warmer and wetter planet next door to us.\u2019\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

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Infographic by Kristina Hristova on Piktochart |\u00a0Facts by Stone, S. et al. (2020)<\/strong>.\u00a0Hydrogen escape from Mars is driven by seasonal and dust storm transport of<\/em> water.\u00a0Science\u00a0<\/em>journal (2020) https:\/\/science.sciencemag.org\/content\/370\/6518\/824 | Photos (as they appear in order) by Nicolas Lobos (1), Juli Kosopalova (2), NASA (3), (4), and Christian Lischka (5), all on Unsplash<\/p><\/div>\n

Scientists gathered data from Maven\u2019s Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer (NGIMS) between October 2014 and November 2018 – a period which equals to two Martian years.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Using NGIMS, they evaluated neutral and ionic specimen, while Maven was circulating through the Red Planet\u2019s upper atmosphere.<\/span><\/p>\n

The researchers observed that Martian water abundance is subject to seasonal and diurnal alterations. It reaches an apogee during southern summer near perihelion when Mars is closest to the Sun.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Mars is getting #trendy<\/a> not only because of Curiosity’s selfie but also for rapidly losing its water abundance. More on the matter on our website.#mars<\/a> #water<\/a> #nasa<\/a> #research<\/a>https:\/\/t.co\/RnmcM0IuKj<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Voice Of London UK (@VoiceOfLondonUK) November 20, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dust storms are a significant deviation from this recurrent process, as they link to the sudden escalation in ions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Just three weeks ago, Nasa confirmed the evidence of water on the Moon<\/a> as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Infographic by Kristina Hristova on Piktochart\u00a0| Facts by Stone, S. et al. (2020)<\/strong>.\u00a0Hydrogen escape from Mars is driven by seasonal and dust storm transport of<\/em> water.\u00a0Science\u00a0<\/em>journal (2020) https:\/\/science.sciencemag.org\/content\/370\/6518\/824; Honniball, C.et al.<\/i> (2020<\/strong>)<\/strong>.<\/i>\u00a0Molecular water detected on the sunlit Moon by SOFIA<\/em>.\u00a0Nature Astronomy<\/i>\u00a0(2020). https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/s41550-020-01222-x;\u00a0Hayne, P. et al. (2020).<\/strong>\u00a0Micro cold traps on the Moon<\/em>. Nature Astronomy (2020).\u00a0https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/s41550-020-1198-9<\/em>\u00a0| Photos by Neven Krcmarek (left) and Luca Ruegg (right) on Unsplash<\/p><\/div>\n

A previous study by Professor Takashi Mikouchi at the University of Tokyo suggested that the formation of water on the Red Planet might have been an indigenous occurrence.<\/span><\/p>\n

Words: Kristina Hristova | Subbing: Zakia N<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mars has lost an abundance of water resources corresponding to a hundred-feet depth for billions of years due to dust storms and seasonal modifications, among subtler phenomena in lower layers, according to a recent study…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":476,"featured_media":39993,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93],"tags":[2389,3995,4368,5240,5478,5479,5582,5739,5964,6817],"class_list":["post-39990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-findings","tag-mars","tag-nasa","tag-research","tag-science","tag-scientists","tag-shane-w-stone","tag-solar-system","tag-study","tag-water-abundance"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/476"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}