A group of researchers on the College of Copenhagen’s Heart for Star and Planet Formation, working with colleagues from Université de Paris, ETH Zürich and the College of Bern, has discovered proof suggesting that many of the water that made up an historic international ocean on Mars got here from carbon-rich chondrite meteorites from the outer solar system. The research is revealed in Science Advances.
Prior analysis has steered that at one time, Mars was both largely or completely lined by a watery ocean, and that the water got here from gases seeping from beneath the floor and liquifying as they cooled. On this new effort, the researchers recommend the water extra possible got here from one other supply—meteorites touring from the outer solar system.
The researchers got here to this conclusion after finding out fragments flung from the floor of Mars after asteroid strikes, which made their method to Earth as meteorites. The researchers studied 31 of them, trying most particularly for chromium isotopic fingerprints. Chromium-54 doesn’t happen naturally on Mars; thus, its presence in crust samples from Mars would point out that the floor had been struck by materials from some other place.
The researchers discovered sufficient of the fabric to estimate how most of the meteorites had crashed into Mars. And that, they notice, allowed them to estimate how a lot water was carried to the planet, as properly.
Prior analysis has proven that such meteorites are 10% water. That allowed them to calculate how a lot water was possible delivered to the planet—it was sufficient to cowl your entire floor to a depth of 300 meters. This discovering means that water-rich asteroids have been the primary supply of water filling Mars’ oceans. It additionally means that many of the water on different our bodies within the solar system possible got here from the outer solar system through meteorites as properly.
Extra data:
Ke Zhu et al, Late supply of unique chromium to the crust of Mars by water-rich carbonaceous asteroids, Science Advances (2022). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abp8415
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Historic international ocean on Mars might have come from carbon-rich chondrite meteorites from the outer solar system (2022, November 17)
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