Mars didn’t lose all of its water without resistance.
Earth Today 1,000 Ten times drier than the driest deserts on Earth, Mars gradually lost its insulating atmosphere. The giant lakes and rivers that once existed on Mars evaporated about 3 billion years ago, and the rocky world froze over the entire planet. However, some highly salty pools remained, and the freezing point dropped dramatically to -40 degrees Fahrenheit (-40 degrees Celsius). As anyone who has ever swam in the ocean knows, salt dissolves easily in water.
These ancient pools of water may have even harboured remnants of life, namely hardy primitive microbes. But eventually, they vanished, leaving behind salt deposits like the ones pictured below. Today, these dried relics of Mars’ watery past resemble familiar shapes:
“These salt deposits probably formed when shallow pond water or brines evaporated in the sun,” planetary scientist Valentin Bickel of the University of Bern in Switzerland said in a statement. “Similar methods are used in saltwater pools on Earth to produce salt for human consumption,” said Bickel, who led a recent study published in the journal. Scientific Dataadded.
Mashable Lightspeed
A NASA scientist saw the first Voyager images, and he was horrified by what he saw.
The European Space Agency’s ExoMars Trace Gases Probe, part of a mission to determine whether life has ever existed on Mars, captured this image. The color infrared image shows salty deposits in purple on the Martian desert surface.
A “smiley face”-like salt deposit on the surface of Mars.
Credit: ESA / TGO / CaSSIS
Planetary scientists believe these salt deposits may be the remains of brine ponds.
Credit: ESA / TGO / CaSSIS
The tweet may have been deleted
A collaboration between NASA and ESA is set to launch the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin probe, a ground partner to the ExoMars satellite, in 2028. “The probe’s new instrument will be the first to drill up to 6.5 feet (2 meters) below the surface to collect ice samples protected from surface radiation and extreme temperatures,” NASA said.
It is here beneath the surface that scientists can find strong evidence of life: powerful bacteria similar to those found on Earth may have been living dormant underground. Millions of years.
You won’t know until you see it.