Related papers: Near-tropical subsurface ice on Mars
Whether extant life exists in the martian subsurface is an open question. High concentrations of photochemically produced CO and H2 in the otherwise oxidizing martian atmosphere represent untapped sources of biologically useful free energy.…
We analyze Mars Climate Sounder temperature and aerosol data in the tropics to study atmospheric tides and their relation to the dust and water ice distributions. Our results from data covering Mars years (MY) 29-35 reveal that MY29 has…
The ratio of nitrogen isotopes in the Martian atmosphere is a key constraint on the planet's atmospheric evolution. However, enrichment of the heavy isotope expected due to atmospheric loss from sputtering and photochemical processes is…
Mars is the only planet, other than Earth, for which there are several evidences that liquid water was abundant at the surface. Among them, one of the best evidence is that the ancient terrains of Mars are covered with fluvial and…
Mars exploration motivates the search for extraterrestrial life, the development of space technologies, and the design of human missions and habitations. Here we seek new insights and pose unresolved questions relating to the natural…
The Habitable Zone (HZ) is defined by the possibility of sustaining liquid water on a planetary surface. In the Solar System, the HZ for a conservative climate model extends approximately between the orbits of Earth and Mars. We elaborate…
Mars today has no active volcanism and its atmosphere is oxidizing, dominated by the photochemistry of CO2 and H2O. Using a one-dimensional photochemical model, we consider whether plausible volcanic gas fluxes could have switched the…
Jupiter Trojans appear to be a key population of small bodies to study and test the models of the Solar System formation and evolution. Because understanding the evolution of Trojans can bring strong and unique constraints on the origins of…
Airborne dust plays an active role in determining the thermal structure and chemical composition of the present-day atmosphere of Mars and possibly the planet's climate evolution over time through radiative--convective and cloud…
This roadmap outlines research pathways to determine whether Mars could be warmed with non-biological methods. It does not presuppose that warming Mars is desirable; its purpose is to identify what would need to be true for Mars to be…
Atmospheric escape is an important process that influences the evolution of planetary atmospheres. A variety of physical mechanisms can contribute to escape from an atmosphere, including thermal escape, ion escape, photochemical escape, and…
The distribution and origin of serpentine on Mars can provide insights into the planet's aqueous history, habitability, and past climate. In this study, we used dynamic aperture factor analysis/target transformation applied to 15,760 images…
We present the synthesis of CRISM EPF and MARCI data to examine the evolution of atmospheric water ice and dust opacity at both poles for MY 28-30.
The Mars ambient space environment evolves with the varying solar activity. Understanding the Martian space environment, particularly the topside ionosphere across different phases of Solar Cycles (SC) 24 \& 25 remains a key research gap in…
All three terrestrial planets with atmospheres support O3 layers of some thickness. While currently only that of Earth is substantial enough to be climatically significant, we hypothesize that ancient Mars may also have supported a thick O3…
The illuminated dusty surface of Mars acts like a gas pump. It is driven by thermal creep at low pressure within the soil. In the top soil layer this gas flow has to be sustained by a pressure gradient. This is equivalent to a lifting force…
Mars' sedimentary rocks record Gyrs of environmental change. New data enable the first global analysis of paleo-environment relevant physical properties of these rocks, including layer thickness and accumulation rate. We find that layer…
Liquid water is a critical component of habitability. However, the production and stability of surficial liquid water can be challenging on planets outside the Habitable Zone and devoid of adequate greenhouse warming. On such cold, icy…
Carbon dioxide (CO$_2$) ice clouds have been routinely observed in the middle atmosphere of Mars. However, there are still uncertainties concerning physical mechanisms that control their altitude, geographical, and seasonal distributions.…
Regolith on Mars exchanges water with the atmosphere on a diurnal basis and this process causes significant variation in the abundance of water vapor at the surface. While previous studies of regolith-atmosphere exchange focus on the…