Weighing in on a Mars water debate: Analysis challenges previous findings

More than 3 billion years ago, Mars stalled liquid water on its surface. After losing many environment of the planet, however, surface water may no longer remain. The fate of Mars water – whether it has been buried as snow, limited into deep aquifers, included in minerals or disintegrated into space – an area of ​​ongoing research was re -added, Lasp’s senior research scientist Bruce Jaksky, Bruce Jakski, former major explicit and dissemination development (Mavan) of Mars atmosphere (Mavan) Mission.

Last week, one in Letter to editor of Action of National Science Academy ,owner), Jakoski challenged the conclusion of 2024 owner Mangal suggested that Mars retains a significant amount of liquid water in its middle-crust. Jakoski noted that while this is a possible conclusion, it is not only one, because the data on which the study is based does not require water-relieved crust.

“While the approach and analysis are appropriate and appropriate, the results of their modeling suggest an alternative conclusion,” Jakoski says.

The data used in the analysis led to NASA’s internal exploration using earthquake, geodesy and heat transport (Insight) missions, which launched in 2018 and placed a single lander on Mars to collect geological data to study the interior of the planet. Although Mission ended in 2022, when a Martian dust store stopped the solar panels of the lander from gaining power, scientists are still analyzing data from insight – and arguing what it means.

In August 2024 owner Jiophan Right of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego studied the rock physics model to determine what kind of rocks, water saturation levels, and gurusal and gurutvacs data were collected for the incentives, which could determine what kind of rocks, water saturation levels, water saturation levels, which could be determined, which could be collected from the incentives, which could be collected from 11.5 kg. Was the area.

The team concluded that a middle-crust made of saturated fracture igneous rocks with liquid water “explains the best existing data.” They estimated that the amount of stranded water would reach a depth between one and two kilometers – if it was spread evenly on the surface of the planet, a measure called the global equivalent layer. For comparison, the Earth’s global equivalent layer is 3.6 kilometers, almost completely due to oceans, with very little water in the crust.

“We hope that there will be water or snow in the crust,” Jakoski is called. “In fact it is challenging to find out and determine its abundance, but it is very important to understand how much water is on Mars and what has its history.”

The reconstruction of Jakoski of model results admitted how the stares are distributed and other conditions, such as the presence of solid snow or empty holes locations, which can also explain the seismic and gravitational data insight collected. While insight data does not require the presence of water in the mid-crust, Jakoski also says, they also do not rule it. After factoring in the distribution of the stress location, he concluded that the global equivalent layer can range from zero to two kilometers, expanding the lower range found by previous studies.

The amount of water present in the crust of Mars is a question that includes further missions – more detailed geological analysis and comments, including more advanced seismic profiling – can respond to one day’s help. Additional implications of findings include the water cycle of the red planet, its potential position for life and better understanding of the availability of resources for future missions.