Streams like streams on Mars are an amazing thing. They look like rivers in Antarctica because of the melting glaciers, but high altitudes are not places where we expect to find running water any time soon.
So how did the rivers of Mars form? Carbon dioxide ice has been proposed as an alternative, but a new study by a group of scientists in the US suggests that under the right conditions, liquid water can do the job. Furthermore, it could have happened relatively recently as geological timescales go, perhaps 630,000 years ago.
The key is the tilt of the planet’s line. When the tilt reaches 35 degrees, a new comparison of temperature and air circulation appears, the strength of the atmosphere can cause the surface to be heated above the freezing point, for a short time. It would be enough to melt the snow and ice still on Mars.
“We know from a lot of our research and other people’s research that early in the history of Mars, there was liquid water on the surface with plains and lakes,” he says. Brown University earth scientist Jim Head.
“But about 3 billion years ago, all that liquid water was lost, and Mars became what we call an arid desert.”
The calculations carried out by the research team provide a lot of information about where the rivers start, how much erosion they cause, and how far they can stretch. The team was able to compare their model with data from Mars’ Terra Sirenum region, dating back to when rivers are thought to have grown rapidly in the region.
A double-edged phenomenon occurs, where tunnels formed by melting ice are also flooded with CO2 gas.2 snow. The area probably still has ice trapped beneath it, and may have had more in the past.
Erosion flow fits the Martian landscape better than CO2– relative erosion, which has no equivalent in the earth that we can study, and does not tend to cause the same effect on the rock it encounters. This type of activity has been observed on present-day Mars, through high-resolution satellite images.
“Our research shows that the distribution of rivers around the world is best explained by liquid water over the past million years,” says planetary scientist Jay Dickson, of the California Institute of Technology.
“Water describes the distribution of rivers in ways that CO2 they can’t. “This means that Mars could have produced enough liquid water to form trenches in the past million years, which is the most recent event in Mars’ geologic history.”
The tilt of Mars’ axis is known to change over time, even over hundreds of thousands of years. This movement has been associated with ice ages on the red planet.
Meltwater flows on Mars in the past would have made it difficult for life to grow, so this study offers exciting new ideas about the possibility of life on Mars.
Eventually, the earth will return to an angle of 35 degrees, which will allow the liquid water to flow again.
To return to the Dry Plains of Antarctica, life remains in a state of stasis when there is no liquid water. It is unlikely that the same thing could happen on Mars.
“Could there be a bridge, if you could, between the early hot and wet Mars and the Mars we see today in terms of liquid water?” says Head. “Everyone is always looking for a place that can be good not only for the creation of life but also for its preservation and continuation.”
“Mars’ micro-organisms will live in environments where they can survive in ice and be comfortable or thrive in liquid water.”
Research has been published in Science.
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