Question Corner | Does Mars have water to enable habitability?
The Hindu
Water is essential for life, on Earth and other planets but Mars has no liquid water on its surface today. New research from Washington University in St. Louis suggests a fundamental reason: Mars may
Water is essential for life, on Earth and other planets but Mars has no liquid water on its surface today. New research from Washington University in St. Louis suggests a fundamental reason: Mars may be just too small to hold on to large amounts of water.
The study (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)
used stable isotopes of the element potassium to estimate the presence, distribution and abundance of volatile elements on different planetary bodies. Potassium is a moderately volatile element, but the scientists decided to use it as a tracer for more volatile compounds, such as water.