A new study which was recently reported by CNN revealed that if life was ever lived on olden Mars, "it may not have found its way on the surface, but several miles underneath it." This new study proposed that Mars' most habitable part in the past was possibly its subsurface.
The study, which was published in the Science Advances journal on Wednesday, specified that the habitability of Mars over the geologic period, indissolubly associated with the existence and availability of energy and liquid water, stayed a key them in planetary discovery.
This research also indicated that much of the bacterial biomass of Earth is residing within its crust, where liquid water is readily accessible. In addition, considerable biological variety exists all over the large volume of subsurface livable environs.
As humans understand, life on Earth requires several basic ingredients, and water is one of them. More so, for many years, the succession of robotic missions of NASA has been following the water on Mars to find out more about the history of the planet, and this includes if it ever supported life.
Mars Had Abundant Water in the Noachian Era
The CNN report also said, while a lot of scientists trust that Mars was warm and "wet billions of years ago," the planet became "the frozen desert it is" at present; others refer to the pail young sun inconsistency.
Four billion years ago, the news site specified, the sun was much paler, roughly 30-percent paler. And over time, it has developed warmer and brighter.
At present, the Red Planet is only receiving roughly more than 40 percent of the concentrated sunlight the sun is providing the Earth. Meaning, temperatures on olden Mars would have struggled to rise on top of the water ice's melting point.
However, geological features on Mars demonstrate proof of hydrated minerals, as well as olden lakes and riverbeds.
Such proof underscores the fact is that Mars possibly had abundant liquid water during the Noachian period, or an estimate of around three to four billion years back.
Ancient Mars
Scientists used a diversity of datasets to examine their theory about geothermal heating on Mars ages and ages ago.
Such data comprised the ice deposits' thickness in the Martian southern highlands, as well as approximations of the annual surface temperature of the planet and the flow of heat from the interior to the surface four billion years back.
Using modeling, the researchers discovered that the thick ice sheets' subsurface melting would have resulted in abundant groundwater on the Red Planet.
In a statement, lead author and assistant Professor Lujendra Ojha, from the Department of Earth and planetary sciences in the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University-New Brunswick said, "Even if greenhouse gases" such as water vapor and carbon dioxide are pumped into early atmosphere on Mars in computer simulations, "climate models still struggle to support a longstanding warm and wet Mars."
Ojha also said he and his co-authors recommend that the pale young sun inconsistency may be reconciled, at least partially, if the Red Planet had high geothermal heat many ages ago.
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