After seeing all those red, dusty photos from Curiosity, it is hard to imagine Mars, the Red Planet as a holiday paradise with an ocean, maybe some exotic islands, even some Martian cocktails with tiny Martian umbrellas.
According to the news from Universe Today, NASA scientists found out that the red planet used to have an ocean big enough to cover approximately 20% of its surface 3 billion years ago. This body of water is larger than the Earth’s Arctic Ocean.
So where is it now?
It has gone to the space, just like the dolphins in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy left the earth.
Curiosity found out that the ocean had been there for about 1.5 billion years. This is longer than the period that life needed to develop on Earth. Then at one point the ocean started to take a journey to the space molecule by molecule. Not all of it but 87% of the water was gone and 13% of it is now at the planet’s poles as ice pieces.
What is more interesting is that not only was the ocean consisted of the water as we know (you know the one from the coffee and tea you drink, H2O), but it also included deuterium, or heavy water as it is called. The amount of deuterium was 8 times more than that of Earth.
So, is it that important?
Yes it is. The first evidence for life on Earth dates back to 3.5 billion years ago, which is just a billion years following the planet’s formation. That means Mars might have had enough time for the evolution of life. For now we are not sure Martians or Martian dog breeds really existed but even the possibility of this is thrilling.
H/T: Universe Today