What makes mars atmosphere

Most of the water comes from the north water ice cap, which is exposed and sublimates during the Martian summer when carbon dioxide evaporates off the cap. During the southern hemisphere summer, a small CO 2 covered ice cap survives; this perennial ice cap is offset from the south pole. This cycling of CO 2 into and out of ice on the surface changes the atmospheric mass by tens of percent over the course of a Martian year.

Mars could have once harbored life. Some conjecture that life might still exist there today. A number of researchers have even speculated that life on Earth might have seeded Mars , or that life on Mars seeded Earth. The Viking landers famously sought life on Mars during the late s, but came up empty.

Today, some of those results remain controversial, especially one in which a sample of soil was heated and then checked for organics. While Viking did not find any organics, other researchers have alternate explanations for its failure such as the instruments not being sensitive to detect life.

Oceans may have covered the surface of Mars in the past, providing an environment for life to develop. Although the red planet is a cold desert today, researchers suggest that liquid water may be present underground, providing a potential refuge for any life that might still exist there. Several studies have shown that there is abundant water ice beneath the surface. A feature called recurring slope lineae RSL sometimes occur on Martian slopes.

In , researchers announced that hydrated salts had been found inside of these features, which suggests that RSLs have a sort of briny water in them — an environment that could be hospitable to some forms of extreme life.

However, more studies in and shed some doubt on that theory. One study suggested that the water may arise from the Martian atmosphere, while others maintain that the RSLs are instead due to dry sand. NASA's Curiosity rover is currently seeking habitable environments during its mission on Mars, which began in It is measured in parts per million ppm which means that for every carbon dioxide molecule there are a million others.

Its concentration is just 0. During the warmer interglacial periods, it hovered around ppm, but since the s, it has continued to rise relentlessly. Water makes temperature move slowly. Earth is rich in water. Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, but it has a very thin atmosphere and is not the warmest planet.

Venus is very, very hot. This combination makes the planet an incredibly cold place. The absence of water makes the temperature on Mars change a lot. A new way has emerged, however, that would consume 25 times less electrical power to produce the same amount of oxygen.

No matter whether you use solar cells or a radioactive source to generate your electricity, the available power is limited, so this is an important gain. In the new study, a team from Washington University in the US, demonstrate how electrolysis can be used efficiently to produce oxygen and hydrogen simultaneously from brine.

It turns out that when you start from a concentrated solution of magnesium perchlorate, it is relatively easy to split the water component of the brine into oxygen and hydrogen using electrolysis.

The Curiosity rover has also found evidence of calcium perchlorate brine just south of the martian equator. There are places where the appearance of dark, moist streaks is thought to be the seasonal flow of brine to the surface. If you land where there is brine available, the new study argues, you could make as much oxygen as you like — provided you have unlimited brine and power. The breakthrough in the efficiency of this perchlorate brine electrolysis has to do with the make-up of the oxygen-producing electrode.

For this, the study used a variety of a mineral called pyrochlore , consisting in this instance of an oxide of lead and ruthenium.

Read more: Water, water, everywhere — where to drink in the solar system.