Oxygen could exist on Mars, say researchers

A team led by scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) calculated that if liquid water existed on Mars, the planet could contain more oxygen than it could have. we did not think so before.

According to the model, published in Nature GeoSciencetheoretically, the levels could even exceed the threshold necessary to allow a simple aerobic life.

This theory goes against what we previously thought about Mars because the existence of liquid water on the red planet is not acquired. Even if there were, researchers have long rejected the idea that it could be oxygenated, the atmosphere of Mars being about 160 times thinner than Earth's and composed mainly of carbon dioxide.

"Oxygen is a key ingredient in determining the livability of an environment, but it is relatively rare on Mars," said Woody Fischer, professor of geobiology at Caltech and co-author of the findings.

"No one ever thought that the dissolved oxygen levels needed for aerobic respiration could theoretically exist on Mars," says Vlada Stamenković, of JPL, the main author of the paper.

In recent months, data from a European spacecraft have suggested that liquid water could be under a layer of ice at the south pole of Mars. It has also been hypothesized that water may exist in saline underground pools, as perchlorate salts have been detected at various locations on Mars.

This is due to the fact that salt lowers the freezing point of water, which means that the water containing perchlorate can remain possibly liquid despite the freezing temperatures on Mars, where the nights are freezing. summer at the equator can further fall down to -100 degrees Fahrenheit.

It is this hypothetical salt water that interested Fischer and Stamenković. The oxygen enters the water from the atmosphere and diffuses into the liquid to maintain a balance between water and air. If the salt water was close enough to the surface of the Martian soil, then it could effectively absorb oxygen from the thin atmosphere.

To determine the amount of oxygen that can be absorbed, the researchers developed a chemical model describing how oxygen dissolves in salt water at temperatures below the freezing point of water. . They then examined Mars 'global climate and its evolution over the last 20 million years, during which time the tilt of the planet' s axis has changed, thus altering regional climates.

The combined solubility and climate models allowed researchers to determine which regions of Mars are the most capable of maintaining high oxygen solubilities, both today and in the planet's recent geologic past.

The team found that at sufficiently low altitudes and at low enough temperatures, an unexpected amount of oxygen could exist in the water – a value several times greater than the threshold required for aerobic respiration in the terrestrial oceans.

They also found that the location of these areas had changed as the tilt of the Mars axis had changed over the last 20 million years. During this period, the highest oxygen solubilities have occurred during the last five million years.

The findings could inform future Mars missions by providing better targets for rovers looking for signs of past or present living environments, added Stamenković.

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