Once upon a time, billions of years ago, Mars was a waterlogged world, rich in rivers and oceans. But all of that water was lost and even today, the planet leaks hydrogen out into space...
The study of a new water-cycle in the Martian summertime offers clues as to why Mars is a dusty barren land.
But the mystery lies in how the water made it all the way there in the first place. Like Earth’s tropopause, Mars has a middle atmospheric layer that should restrain rising gas, causing it to turn to ice and fall back to the planet surface.NASA/GSFC Every two Earth years, it’s summertime on the southern hemisphere of Mars and in that place and time, water vapor efficiently rises from the lower to the upper atmosphere. From there, winds carry most of the rare gas to the North Pole, where it sinks once again, but part of it decays off into space.
The Martian orbit of the Sun is much more elliptical than ours and when it’s summer in the southern hemisphere, the planet is closest to its star. That means it’s much warmer than a northern hemisphere summer.
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