Whereas water was current on Mars, they counsel, the liquid might have trickled by sure rock sorts and set off a gradual chain of reactions that progressively drew carbon dioxide out of the environment and transformed it into methane, a type of carbon that could possibly be saved within the clay for eons.
COURTESY OF THE RESEARCHERS
The researchers utilized their information of interactions between rocks and gases on Earth to how related processes might play out on Mars. They discovered that the amount of clay masking the Martian floor might maintain as much as 1.7 bar of CO2, which might be equal to round 80% of the planet’s early environment. “In some methods, Mars’s lacking environment could possibly be hiding in plain sight,” Murray says.
The researchers assume it’s potential that this sequestered carbon might someday be recovered and transformed into propellant to gasoline future missions between Mars and Earth.