JAKARTA, iNews.id – Condition Mars now dry and rocky. Whereas in the past, the Red Planet was predicted to have water flowing on its surface.
The Mars rover Curiosity and Perseverance are tasked with studying the Red Planet. Thanks to the robot, scientists know that in the past there was water flowing across the surface of Mars.
Recent studies show that Mars once contained lakes, rivers and streams. There may even be an ocean covering the northern part. But the water on the Martian surface was almost entirely lost about 3.5 billion years ago, lost to space along with most of the Martian atmosphere.
This drastic climate shift occurred after Mars lost its global magnetic field that had protected the Martian air from the discharge of charged particles flowing from the Sun. But as it turns out, the more fundamental driving factor, according to the new study, is that Mars is too small to hold surface water in the long term.
“The fate of Mars was predetermined from the start,” said study co-author Kun Wang, assistant professor of Earth and planetary sciences at the University of Washington.
“There may be a threshold on the size requirements of a rocky planet to hold enough water to allow for habitability and plate tectonics. And that threshold is larger than Mars,” Wang said.
Editor: Dini Listiyani
