How did Mars maintain surface liquid water billions of years ago? This is what a recent study published in AGU Advances hopes to address as a team of researchers from the United States and Canada investigated why there seems to be a conflict between observed evidence from orbiter images of past liquid water on Mars and models designed to simulate past climate on Mars. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand past environmental conditions on Mars and whether they were suitable for life as we know it.
For the study, the researchers used a lake energy model known as the Lake Modeling on Mars for Atmospheric Reconstructions and Simulations (LakeM2ARS) model—which is modified from an Earth lake model for Mars—to ascertain conflicts between Mars’ geology and past climate. They combined data obtained from NASA’s Curiosity rover that has been exploring Gale Crater on Mars since 2012 with the goal of ascertaining if past climate environmental conditions were sufficient for sustaining a liquid water lake in Gale Crater. In the end, the researchers found that a small lake measuring 10 meters (32.8 feet) deep with monthly inflow measuring 50 mm (1.97 inches) and seasonal ice cover could sustain itself for more than a century.
“If similar patterns emerge across the planet, the results would support the idea that even a quite cold early Mars could sustain year-round liquid water, a key ingredient for environments to be suitable for life,” said Eleanor Moreland, who is a PhD student at Rice University and lead author of the study.
This study comes as scientists continue to gain insight into past climates on Mars and whether they could have supported life as we know it billions of years ago.
What new insight into ancient Mars climates will researchers make in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Sources: AGU Advances, EurekAlert!
Featured Image: Computer image of a lake in Gale Crater on Mars. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/MSSS)
