Scientists detect water vapour emanating from Mars
- The discovery offers new clues about whether the red planet could have once hosted life
- The findings come as probes from China and the UAE enter the planet’s orbit in an exciting week for Martian research
Researchers said on Wednesday they had observed water vapour escaping high up in the thin atmosphere of Mars, offering tantalising new clues as to whether the red planet could have once hosted life.
The traces of ancient valleys and river channels suggest liquid water once flowed across the surface of Mars. Today, the water is mostly locked up in the planet’s ice caps or buried underground.
But some of it is vaporising, in the form of hydrogen leaking from the atmosphere, according to the new research co-authored in the journal Science Advances by two scientists at Britain’s Open University.
They detected the vapour by analysing light passing through the Martian atmosphere using an instrument called the Nadir and Occultation for Mars Discovery.
02:10
China readies massive antenna as Tianwen-1 Mars mission nears orbit around red planet
The device is travelling aboard the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, a joint mission between the European Space Agency and Russia’s Roscosmos.