Most of the habitable region for life would have been several miles below the Martian surface: Scientists- Technology News, Firstpost

FP trend3 December 2020 14:53:15 IST

Scientists claimed that the most habitable region of Mars would be several miles below the planet’s surface and that life was possible due to the subterranean melting of thick sheets of ice from geothermal heat.

Speaking on the study, lead author Lujendra Ojha and assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Rutgers University’s School of Arts and Sciences, said that even though greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and vapor water are pumped into the early Martian atmosphere in computer simulations, climate models still struggle to support a long-term warm and humid Mars. He added that the young sun paradox concept could be reconciled in part if Mars had high geothermal heat some four billion years ago.

This portion of a classic 1997 panorama from the IMP camera on the mast of NASA’s Mars Pathfinder lander includes “Twin Peaks” on the horizon and the Sojourner rover next to a rock called “Yogi”. Image credit: NASA / JPL

Second study authors, the sun is like a huge nuclear fusion reactor that generates energy by fusing hydrogen into helium. Over the centuries, it has gradually illuminated and heated the surface of the planets in our solar system. However, about four billion years ago, it was much weaker and therefore the climate of early Mars should have been freezing.

However, the surface of Mars contains both geological and chemical indicators that suggest an abundance of liquids from about 4.1 billion to 3.7 billion years ago. This dichotomy between geological and climate-based documentation is the paradox of the young sun.

A vertically exaggerated, false color view of a large water-sculpted canal on Mars called Dao Vallis. Image: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO. 3D rendered and colored by Lujendra Ojha

The scientists looked at the Mars datasets to see if geothermal heat heating would be possible in that area and found that the conditions necessary for subsoil melting would be present on ancient Mars. According to them, even if Mars had a hot, humid climate about four billion years ago, liquid water may have been stable only at great depths due to magnetic field loss, atmospheric thinning and a drop in temperatures. global.

Therefore, scientists believe that even if life originated on Mars, it may have followed liquid water to great depths.

The results of the study were published in the journal Advances in science.