Mars River Valley Mapped with Climate Models to Reveal Water Origins

First Posted: Oct 14, 2015 08:22 AM EDT

Mars is being examined more closely after the discovery of its water. Now, researchers are looking at the extensive valley networks that were probably created by running water billions of years ago.

"Everyone is looking for life on Mars, and if Mars was habitable early on as indicated by flowing water, then the chances of there being some sort of life there now goes up," said Natash Batalha, one of the researchers, in a news release. "Our work involves using models to best estimate what was happening on the surface of Mars 3.8 billion years ago."

Researchers have conducted previous studies that analyzed craters. These studies supported the idea that flowing water on early Mars was present. However, researchers are still unsure how surface warming occurred to melt that water and how much water was really there.

"If we compare some of these valleys on Mars to what we know on Earth, for example the Colorado River, then they look to be the same width," said James Kasting, one of the researchers. "We know how much water it took to carve the Grand Canyon based on five to six million years of rainfall, which is estimated to be about three to six million feet (of rainfall)."

In 2014, the researchers proposed a climate model showing Mars being warmed by a dense atmosphere of greenhouse gases that included carbon dioxide and hydrogen. In order to see if it was possible to get a high percent of hydrogen in the atmosphere, the researchers created models. They found that it was possible with volcanic fluxes caused by plate tectonics.

"While Curiosity couldn't directly prove our hypothesis about a high hydrogen atmosphere, if you get millions of years of warmth, then you're driven towards hydrogen because we haven't been able to figure out any other way to create that warmth," said Batalha. "All of the other greenhouse mechanisms fail in our models."

The findings are published in the journal Icarus.

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TagsMars, Red Planet, Mars Rover Curiosity, Water, Curiosity, NASA, NASA’s, Rivers, Planet