New Clues About Mars’ Early Atmosphere Suggest a Wet Planet Capable of Supporting Life PRESS RELEASE DATE September 21, 2022 CONTACT Rebecca McDonald Director of Communications SETI Institute rmcdonald@SETI.org A 3D render of a blue wet planet - image by...
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New Clues About Mars’ Early Atmosphere Suggest a Wet Planet Capable of Supporting Life PRESS RELEASE DATE September 21, 2022 CONTACT Rebecca McDonald Director of Communications SETI Institute rmcdonald@SETI.org A 3D render of a blue wet planet - image by Planet Volumes/Anodé on Unsplash. September 21, 2022, Mountain View, CA – New research published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters suggests that Mars was born wet, with a dense atmosphere allowing warm-to-hot oceans for millions of years. To reach this conclusion, researchers developed the first model of the evolution of the Martian atmosphere that links the high temperatures associated with Mars’s formation in a molten state through to the formation of the first oceans and atmosphere. This model shows that -- as on the modern Earth -- water vapor in the Martian atmosphere was concentrated in the lower atmosphere and that the upper atmosphere of Mars was “dry” because the water vapor would condense out as clouds at lower levels in
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