Was Loss of Water from Mars Destined from the Start? - The Cosmic Companion 24 September 2021
Our smaller, redder, planetary neighbor may have been too small to ever have hope of holding onto oceans for long, a new study reveals.
The loss of water from Mars is a massive issue — or, rather, an issue of a lack of mass.
Billions of years ago, Mars was a watery world, more akin to Earth than the desert planet we see today. The Red Planet — just half the diameter of Earth and 10 percent of our mass — would have made a wonderous sight in the Solar System. Yet — however cute its diminutive nature might have made it long ago, this same quality may have held the destruction of its watery abodes.
Much of the northern hemisphere of the Red Planet may have once been covered in a behemoth ocean. By 3.5 billion years ago, however, those vast reservoirs of water had largely dried up, leaving behind a dry, ruddy surface.
Read more: https://bit.ly/Mars-Water-Doomed
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