Mars is too cold for liquid body of water at its airfoil , yetevidence aboundsliquids are reshape its surface . The most likely solution – in both locoweed of the word – involves atomic number 12 perchlorate break up in water . When replicate in the laboratory , this acquire an issue equivalent to pressurize consummate water more than on the sea bottom . The determination could explain some puzzling features we have see on Mars , and probably has yet to be resolve implications for the theory of biography on Mars .
The Phoenix Lander found Ca and magnesium perchlorate salts in Martian soil . Scientists attempting to excuse the patterns on Mars that look like dry river beds have excogitate the possibility the Red Planet sees periodic effusion of brines – water laden with these chemical substance instead of sodium chloride as would be more plebeian on Earth .
" The surface temperatures on Mars may reach a high of about 20 ° Celcius at the equator and as low as -153 ° Celsius at the perch . With an middling airfoil temperature of -55 ° Celsius , water itself can not live as a liquid on Mars , but concentrated solutions of perchlorate could survive these gloomy temperatures,“Dr Lorna Douganof the University of Leeds note in astatement .
InNature Communications , Dougan reports on studies conducted on piddle with vary atomic number 12 perchlorate Mg(ClO4)2concentrations .
Impurities lower the thaw decimal point of a substance liken to the arrant version , so atomic number 12 perchlorate solution has a lower melting point than distilled body of water . At a concentration of 44 percentage by weight , Dougan found brine stay liquid down to 206 K ( -67 ° nose candy or -88 ° F ) , a temperature even Mars commonly exceeds .
The presence of dissolved ion is known to alter the social organisation of pee molecules . However , there are so many molecules that can be dissolve in water that the effects of many of these are uncontrived . Dougan establish Mg perchlorate at 44 per centum concentration replaces hydrogen bonds between water molecules with cation - water - anion bonds , remold the water molecules as if they were under pressures of two billion Blaise Pascal – almost 2,000 times the atmospheric pressure at ocean degree .
" We found these observations quite challenging , ” Dougansaid . “ The atomic number 12 perchlorate is intelligibly a major contributing broker on the freezing point of this solution and paves the way for understand how a fluid might exist under the sub - freezing conditions of Mars . ”
liquified water is considered of the essence for life-time . It surely does n’t involve to be pure – our ocean are very salty – but we do n’t know how water make full with magnesium perchlorate rather than predominantly sodium perchlorate would change matter . Dougan suggested prove life in extreme circumstance , such as thick ocean species that survive under tremendous pressures , to get a estimable handle on how Martian organisms , if they subsist , might adapt to their environment .
