Confirmed: Planet Mars Has Supersaturated Atmospheric Water Vapour 10X That of Earth!

ESA's Mars Express spacecraft, has confirmed detection of unprecedented levels of Martian supersaturated atmospheric water vapour, at 10X the levels present on our own planet Earth!

The levels of water high in the Martian atmosphere are startling, claims ESA scientists.

Instruments aboard Mars Express, measured the levels of upper atmospheric H20 and estimate them to be up to 100 times higher than previously expected...100X higher.

The instrument that detected the amazing quantities of high altitude water is SPICAM (Spectroscopy for the Investigation of the Characteristics of the Atmosphere of Mars), it has found levels in excess of saturation, and in much higher quantities than measured here on Earth.

Here, we report observations made using the SPICAM (Spectroscopy for the Investigation of the Characteristics of the Atmosphere of Mars) instrument onboard Mars Express that provide evidence of the frequent presence of water vapor in excess of saturation, by an amount far surpassing that encountered in Earth’s atmosphere.

This result contradicts the widespread assumption that atmospheric water on Mars cannot exist in a supersaturated state, directly affecting our long-term representation of water transport, accumulation, escape, and chemistry on a global scale.

Science Magazine

The new results, based on SPICAM data obtained during the northern spring and summer, indicate that the vertical distribution of water vapor in the Martian atmosphere is very different from previous assumptions.

An international team led by Luca Maltagliati of the Laboratoire Atmosphères, Milieux, Observations Spatiales (LATMOS) in Guyancourt, France, describe SPICAM observations at infrared wavelengths that for the first time provide evidence for the existence of supersaturated water vapor on Mars.

Extremely high levels of supersaturation were found on Mars, up to 10 times greater than those found on Earth.

Clearly, there is much more water vapor in the upper Martian atmosphere than anyone ever imagined. It seems that previous models have greatly underestimated the quantities of water vapour at heights of 20–50 km, with as much as 10 to 100 times more water than expected at this altitude.

Daily Galaxy

The reason thought to promote this supersaturation of H2O on Mars, is a lack of precipitating or condensing aerosol particles in the Martian upper atmosphere, during the planets aphelion or the point where Mars is furthest away from the sun.

Basically a lack of dust in the atmosphere, leads to a supersaturated H2O upper Martian atmosphere.

Here on Earth, the dust or particles in the air, cause vapour to form droplets around these tiny particles of dust and salts, and then condense into rain or ice, so while we have much more H2O in our atmosphere as a whole, we don't have anywhere near the saturation levels Mars has.

The saturation levels on Mars during it's Perihelion or closest approach to the Sun are expected to plummet in Southern Summer, as dust storms will be expected to throw up large amounts of dust and aerosols into the high Atmosphere, increasing the supply of condensation nuclei..now, i don't know about you dear readers, but this is implying something very odd to me.

The implication is that aerosols and 'condensation nuclei' will cause the Martian water vapour to condense, and precipitate just as it does here on Earth...does this suggest that it RAINS H2O on Mars?!

This finding has vast implications, and has to be regarded as a prime reason to rethink almost everything we thought we knew about the Martian climate.

It also has other implications regarding life, past or present of course.

What strikes me as particularly puzzling, is considering almost every probe sent to Mars, has had in it's remit the search for evidence of both H2O and life, past or present, over the last 35 years or so, and we are only discovering this supersaturated state...now?!

The Official reason for 'missing' the levels of atmospheric supersaturation before now, is essentially one of 'The instruments on previous probes were looking down at the surface, not at the correct angle to detect this phenomena...anyone else feel that is total rubbish?

We send expensive, fairly rare probes to Mars to look for water and signs of life ancient or otherwise, yet we don't sample the upper atmosphere on the way down?

We don't use orbiter instrumentation to look obliquely at the Martian atmosphere for signs of water or bacteria and so on?

I for one, don't buy it. Two rovers over five years, and if the condensing nuclei theory is correct, they have not observed precipitation or snow?

Ever?

And if they have and assumed it was CO2 snow, would they not have at least sampled it to test?

Something doesn't add up to me.












Mod Edit: All Caps – Please Review This Link.

Great post!

Awesome findings here, too.

The Mars ROVERS were very specialized - it makes complete sense to me that they could miss this. They were equipped to take soil samples and look for organic material on the ground, not in the sky. They weren't even recording anything but flight data as they passed through the upper layers of the Martian atmosphere.

I don't think there's a conspiracy here, but what do I know?

ETA: You should research how these craft entered the atmosphere and slowed for landing, it will give you a better understanding of why they wouldn't have found this supersaturated water.

Originally posted by spikey

The implication is that aerosols and 'condensation nuclei' will cause the Martian water vapour to condense, and precipitate just as it does here on Earth...does this suggest that it RAINS H2O on Mars?!

This finding has vast implications, and has to be regarded as a prime reason to rethink almost everything we thought we knew about the Martian climate.

It also has other implications regarding life, past or present of course.

Actually, the implication is that rather than forming underground "glaciers", the water that made up Mar's ancient seas may have escaped into space.

"The data suggest that much more water vapor is being carried high enough in the atmosphere to be affected by photodissociation," added Franck Montmessin, also from LATMOS, who is the Principal Investigator for SPICAM and a co-author of the paper.

"Solar radiation can split the water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen atoms, which can then escape into space. This has implications for the rate at which water has been lost from the planet and for the long-term evolution of the Martian surface and atmosphere."

www.dailygalaxy.com...

And this was posted previously.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

This just doesn't make sense. Atmospheric dust is supposedly what would cause this supersaturated atmosphere to precipitate. Mars has enormous dust storms all the time, even planet wide ones sometimes. So why doesn't that cause precipitation? Furthermore, with one percent of the atmosphere of Earth, where does the WIND for these dust storms come from?

Also, they are saying it is saturated 10x what they expected, not ten times of Earth. So if all they expected was one billionth of one percent, and instead they found one hundred millionth of one percent, hell, that's TEN TIMES AS MUCH.

reply to post by spikey


Someone on this very site wrote that Nibiru would bring the water back to Mars.

What a clever thinker. I would like to meet this person and shake his hand.-----------

reply to post by yourmamaknows


Nibiru bringing water back to mars?

Ha, thats ridiculous. They dont need a handshake - need a slap on the head.

Originally posted by homeslice
reply to post by yourmamaknows

 

Nibiru bringing water back to mars?

Ha, thats ridiculous. They dont need a handshake - need a slap on the head.

Ask Phage how this could happen. He could figure it out.-------------------

Neat. I'd take a guess and say that the low atmospheric pressure drops the vapor point of water way down. That's likely to lower the chance of cloud formation way down. So its likely gets hazy with very thin whispy coulds, but big puffy clouds are rare.

The soil is also a kind of red clay (like that used on baseball diamonds), so any moisture that condenses on the ground is going to be drawn into it like a sponge. Some photos of tracks left by the rovers seem to suggest that Mars is muddy and that's where a lot of the ground water is. It's suspended right there in the dirt, I bet if they did some deeper digging in the right areas there might be some signs of thermokarst or landforms similar to that.

It seems reasonable that that much water in the air means there's got to be a lot more underground.

It's nice knowing water is there. It seems to also have some other signs of useful resources. If one could add heat and pressure to that planet and some shielding from cosmic radiation, it'd be livable. Introduce the right bacteria to Mars soil under a protective greenhouse, and eventually various plants could be grown on it. It wouldn't be much more than moss and lichen and algae at first, but once you kick-start the carbon cycle it can be made richer and eventually grow more useful plants as time goes on.

great news!

why arent we terraforming mars yet?

we were on the moon 6 times in less than 3 years during VIETNAM

since then its been all about imperialism on earth than exploring mars/outer space

reply to post by TinkerHaus


Thanks TinkerHaus.

The Rovers would be more adapt at focusing on soil and objects on the ground, but the article specifically mentions that during Perihelion, expected strong dust storms will introduce vast quantities of what they refer to as 'condensation nuclei'.

That is pretty much saying that while the sun will break down a given percentage of the H2O into it's components and some will bleed off into space, the implication is that the majority of the Supersaturated water vapour in the upper atmosphere, will condense around the particulates and precipitation will occur.

Why else would the condensation nuclei be mentioned, if this wasn't the implied process i wonder?

Now, the Rovers would certainly be equipped to optically observe this precipitation and scoop it up for analysis, i would have thought surely?

The conspiracy angle? Well, i have no hard evidence of a conspiracy as such, but in my mind it's stretching incredulity to the limit to believe NASA, with it's landers, rovers and orbiters have not noticed this before.

But as you say, who knows.

Cheers.

reply to post by CaptChaos


My thoughts exactly on the precipitation thing mate.

I think the article states 10X as much Supersaturated upper atmospheric water vapour as is found on Earth, but between 10 and 100X as much as they were expecting to find.

Which is curious in itself really.

Cheers.

As posted above, this topic is already being discussed here.

Thread closed.