NASA: Meteoritic Evidence of Mars Water Reservoir

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Fri Dec 19, 2014 5:14 pm

Scientists Find Meteoritic Evidence of Mars Water Reservoir
NASA | Johnson Space Center | 2014 Dec 18

[i]This illustration depicts Martian water reservoirs. Recent research provides evidence for the existence of a third reservoir that is intermediate in isotopic composition between the Red Planet’s mantle and its current atmosphere. These results support the hypothesis that a buried cryosphere accounts for a large part of the initial water budget of Mars. [b]Credit: NASA[/b][/i]
NASA and an international team of planetary scientists have found evidence in meteorites on Earth that indicates Mars has a distinct and global reservoir of water or ice near its surface.

Though controversy still surrounds the origin, abundance and history of water on Mars, this discovery helps resolve the question of where the “missing Martian water” may have gone. Scientists continue to study the planet’s historical record, trying to understand the apparent shift from an early wet and warm climate to today’s dry and cool surface conditions.

The reservoir’s existence also may be a key to understanding climate history and the potential for life on Mars. The team’s findings are reported in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

“There have been hints of a third planetary water reservoir in previous studies of Martian meteorites, but our new data require the existence of a water or ice reservoir that also appears to have exchanged with a diverse set of Martian samples,” said Tomohiro Usui of Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan, lead author of the paper and a former NASA/Lunar and Planetary Institute postdoctoral fellow. “Until this study there was no direct evidence for this surface reservoir or interaction of it with rocks that have landed on Earth from the surface of Mars.” ...

Meteoritic evidence for a previously unrecognized hydrogen reservoir on Mars - Tomohiro Usui et al

Earth and Planetary Science Letters 410 140 (15 Jan 2015) DOI: 10.1016/j.epsl.2014.11.022