NASA says Planet Mars may have liquid water, According Curiosity Rover of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Mars may have had water on its surface. Javier Martin-Torres of the Spanish Research Council has said that water is a necessity for life and this mission is to find water on the surface of Mars. Recent research by Rover revealed that it has been found perchlorate in the surface that is able to absorb moisture from the atmosphere.
Since Curiosity landed in Gale, a 154 km-wide crater on the surface of Mars in 2012, a tool that has traveled more than 10 miles from the landing site to Mount Sharp, carries some research samples. Of the journey, scientists have discovered calcium perchlorate in soil where calcium is in proper condition to absorb water from the atmosphere.
Torres is lead author of a study published on Monday in Nature journal.
Since Curiosity landed on Mars in a 154km-wide crater called Gale in 2012, it has travelled more than 10km from the landing site towards Mount Sharp and carried several studies.
The scientists discovered calcium perchlorate in the soil, which under the right conditions absorbs water vapour from the atmosphere. The measurements from Curiosity’s weather monitoring station show these conditions exist at night and just after sunrise in the winter.
Using measurements of humidity and temperature at the surface and atmosphere of the planet, scientists could approximately calculate the amount of water that is absorbed.
“When night falls, some of the water vapour in the atmosphere condenses on the planet surface as frost, but calcium perchlorate is very absorbent and it forms a brine with the water, so the freezing point is lowered and the frost can turn into a liquid,” explains Morten Bo Madsen, associate professor and head of the Mars Group at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen.
Bo Madsen further explained that the soil is porous, so the water seeps down through the soil.
Eventually, other salts can also dissolve in the soil and since they are now liquid, they can move elsewhere under the surface.
Mars probe’s stereo camera has earlier shown areas typical of old riverbed with rounded pebbles, which show that a long time ago there was flowing, running water with a depth of up to one metre. The new close-up images taken by the rover on its way to Mount Sharp show that there are stretches of sedimentary deposits, a hint that large amounts of water flowed down the crater.
“The sediment plates on the bottom are level, so everything indicates that the entire Gale Crater may have been a large lake,” explains Bo Madsen.
Since Curiosity landed in Gale, a 154 km-wide crater on the surface of Mars in 2012, a tool that has traveled more than 10 miles from the landing site to Mount Sharp, carries some research samples. Of the journey, scientists have discovered calcium perchlorate in soil where calcium is in proper condition to absorb water from the atmosphere.
Torres is lead author of a study published on Monday in Nature journal.
Since Curiosity landed on Mars in a 154km-wide crater called Gale in 2012, it has travelled more than 10km from the landing site towards Mount Sharp and carried several studies.
The scientists discovered calcium perchlorate in the soil, which under the right conditions absorbs water vapour from the atmosphere. The measurements from Curiosity’s weather monitoring station show these conditions exist at night and just after sunrise in the winter.
Using measurements of humidity and temperature at the surface and atmosphere of the planet, scientists could approximately calculate the amount of water that is absorbed.
“When night falls, some of the water vapour in the atmosphere condenses on the planet surface as frost, but calcium perchlorate is very absorbent and it forms a brine with the water, so the freezing point is lowered and the frost can turn into a liquid,” explains Morten Bo Madsen, associate professor and head of the Mars Group at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen.
Bo Madsen further explained that the soil is porous, so the water seeps down through the soil.
Eventually, other salts can also dissolve in the soil and since they are now liquid, they can move elsewhere under the surface.
Mars probe’s stereo camera has earlier shown areas typical of old riverbed with rounded pebbles, which show that a long time ago there was flowing, running water with a depth of up to one metre. The new close-up images taken by the rover on its way to Mount Sharp show that there are stretches of sedimentary deposits, a hint that large amounts of water flowed down the crater.
“The sediment plates on the bottom are level, so everything indicates that the entire Gale Crater may have been a large lake,” explains Bo Madsen.
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