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Ancient explosive volcanic eruptions on Mars might assist clarify mysterious hints of buried ice from the Red Planet’s equator, a brand new research finds.
Previous analysis has discovered that the floor of Mars is wealthy in ice. Most of those deposits are positioned at its poles, simply as seen on Earth. However, lately the Mars Odyssey and the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter spacecraft detected elevated ranges of hydrogen close to the bottom on the equatorial areas of Mars. This ice might have lasted for lengthy spans of time if buried beneath mud or volcanic particles, and nonetheless may exist beneath the floor of equatorial areas on the Red Planet.
Using computer models of the Martian climate, researchers simulated explosive volcanic eruptions that previous research found happened on the Red Planet between 4.1 billion and 3 billion years ago. The models suggested that the eruptions released water vapor into high altitudes, which could have frozen in the cold Martian atmosphere and later fallen as ice. Just one single three-day eruption could have resulted in ice deposits up to 16 feet (5 meters) thick in the area right around a volcano, they found.
“Imagine how much ice could be delivered after repeated eruptions over the course of millions of years,” study lead author Saira Hamid, a planetary scientist at Arizona State University in Tempe, told Space.com. “Explosive volcanism could repeatedly seed low latitudes with ice and ash, producing buried or insulated ice deposits that help explain the excess hydrogen signals measured near the equator.”
Hamid cautioned that the hydrogen that spacecraft have detected around the Martian equator might not come from deposits of ice, but a range of minerals, among other possibilities. Future research can look for signs of ash-covered ice in the equatorial regions of Mars to support or refute the chances of ice there, she noted.
If these equatorial ice pockets exist on Mars, they could prove valuable for human explorers there. “Our work suggests volcanic regions may be high-priority targets,” Hamid noted.
In addition, volcanic eruptions could have spewed out sulfuric acid into the Martian atmosphere. This could have generated sunlight-reflecting aerosols that cooled the Red Planet, plunging it into a global winter that could in turn have let ice accumulate for a prolonged time.
But these ancient Martian volcanic eruptions might have also generated heat and chemicals “that could create short-lived habitable environments,” Hamid said. “Those regions might have offered transient but potentially life-supporting conditions. Understanding where and how these ice–ash deposits formed could help guide the search for past or even preserved biosignatures on Mars.”
The scientists detailed their findings October 14 in the journal Nature Communications.
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