Mars

 Willy Swenson

Mr. Ippolito

Current Event 18

April 7th, 2021

“What Happened to Mars’s Water? It Is Still Trapped There: New Data Challenges the Long-Held Theory That All of Mars’s Water Escaped into Space.” ScienceDaily, 2021, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210316132106.htm. Accessed 8 Apr. 2021.

There is a new theory emerging out of the scientific community in regards to the history of water on the planet Mars. For years, the theory has been that Mars was covered in water, roughly the same amount of water as the Atlantic Ocean, but because of Mars’ low gravity, the water was lost into the atmosphere and space. However, a team of scientists from Caltech and JPL have proposed a new theory that challenges this assertion, “Atmospheric escape clearly had a role in water loss, but findings from the last decade of Mars missions have pointed to the fact that there was this huge reservoir of ancient hydrated minerals whose formation certainly decreased water availability over time,” (Ehlmann). The team has found data to support the theory that water loss occurred roughly 3 billion years ago because water had been covered by Mars’ inactive crust. 

On our planet, our crust constantly is moving and recycling minerals (and thereby water) because of the active tectonic plates’ mechanisms, however Mars does not have active tectonics. So, once the crust dries over water or the water is turned into minerals, there is no chance for it to be recycled through volcanic activity, like on Earth. This is a very interesting theory that has been proposed because it suggests that Mars has a very mineral rich composition. Although, I do not know much about how this will help us humans, I hope that scientists, such as Elon Musk, will use this information to help the human race progress on our journey to explore space. 

Overall, I thought this was a very interesting read because I’ve always been interested in Mars. Since being a little boy thinking there were aliens living on the red planet to a senior in high school imagining the real possibility of visiting the planet in my life time, I think that we keep pushing to discover more and more about what lies beyond our own atmosphere.