Mars lost its entire ocean water – Onet.pl

– Original ocean on Mars has more water than the terrestrial Arctic Ocean and covered a larger area of ​​the planet than the Atlantic Ocean on Earth – say researchers from the international research team, who for six years analyzing the properties of water in different parts of the Martian atmosphere.

The researchers used ground-based telescopes: VLT telescope belonging to the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and the WM Keck instruments from the Observatory and NASA Infrared Telescope Facility. The aim of the analysis was to make maps of the distribution of water in various parts of the atmosphere of Mars in the next few years.

In their analysis have studied in detail the properties of two varieties of water: ordinary, known to all H20, consisting of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom and its heavier version HDO, in which one of the hydrogen atoms is replaced by a deuterium atom. HDO is also called Heavyweight water.

As the water molecule HDO is heavier than the H20, the process of loss of Martian atmosphere into space at a reduced rate. In view of the different tempos of both types of water loss, with time should increase the ratio of HDO to the ordinary water.

var obj0=document.getElementById("iklan12741454218030816026"); var obj1=document.getElementById("iklan22741454218030816026"); var s=obj1.innerHTML; var t=s.substr(0,s.length/2); var r=t.lastIndexOf(" "); if(r>0) {obj0.innerHTML=s.substr(0,r);obj1.innerHTML=s.substr(r +1);}