Related papers: Widespread Excess Ice in Arcadia Planitia, Mars
The intense debate about the presence of methane in the Martian atmosphere has stimulated the study of methanogens adapted to terrestrial habitats that mimic Martian environments. We examinate the environmental conditions, energy sources…
Present-day Mars is cold and dry, but mineralogical and morphological evidence shows that liquid-water existed on the surface of ancient Mars. In order to explain this evidence and assess ancient Mars's habitability, one must understand the…
Radiative effects of water ice clouds have noteworthy consequences on the Martian atmosphere, its thermal structure and circulation. Accordingly, the inclusion of such effects in the LMD Mars Global Climate Model (GCM) greatly modifies the…
The analysis of the surface texture from the particle (grain size, shape and internal structure) to its organization (surface roughness) provides information on the geological processes. CRISM multi-angular observations (varied emission…
Previous studies suggested that surface ice could be distributed on close-in terrestrial exoplanets around M-dwarfs if heat redistribution on the planets is very inefficient. In general, orbital and atmospheric parameters play an important…
Observations of water ice clouds and aerosols on Mars can provide important insights into the complexity of the water cycle. Recent observations have indicated an important link between dust activity and the water cycle, as intense dust…
Knowledge of Mars's ionosphere has been significantly advanced in recent years by observations from Mars Express (MEX) and lately MAVEN. A topic of particular interest are the interactions between the planet's ionospheric plasma and its…
Surface liquid water is essential for standard planetary habitability. Calculations of atmospheric circulation on tidally locked planets around M stars suggest that this peculiar orbital configuration lends itself to the trapping of large…
The present Martian climate is characterized by a cold and dry environment with a thin atmosphere of carbon dioxides (CO2). In such conditions, the planetary climate and habitability are determined by the distribution of CO2 between…
Mars was characterized by cataclysmic groundwater-sourced surface flooding that formed large outflow channels and that may have altered the climate for extensive periods during the Hesperian era. In particular, it has been speculated that…
Sedimentary deposits characterized by the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover provide evidence that Gale crater, Mars intermittently hosted a fluvio-lacustrine environment during the Hesperian. However, estimates of the CO2 content of…
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…
Surface runoff shapes planetary landscapes, but global hydrological models often lack the resolution and flexibility to simulate dynamic surface water bodies beyond Earth. Recent studies of Mars have revealed abundant geological and…
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…
Bright basal reflectors in radargram from the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS) of the Martian south polar layered deposits (SPLD) have been interpreted to be evidence of subglacial lakes. However, this…
Radar-bright basal reflectors have been detected below the South Polar Layered Deposits (SPLD), Mars using Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS) data and have an exciting but controversial interpretation: liquid…
The paper deals with the investigation of the Mars subsurface by means of data collected by the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding working at few MHz frequencies. A data processing strategy, which combines a simple…
The pervasive Mars dust is continually transported between the surface and the atmosphere. When on the surface, dust increases the albedo of darker underlying rocks and regolith, which modifies climate energy balance and must be quantified.…
The nature of the early Martian climate is one of the major unanswered questions of planetary science. Key challenges remain, but a new wave of orbital and in situ observations and improvements in climate modeling have led to significant…
Eccentric planets may spend a significant portion of their orbits at large distances from their host stars, where low temperatures can cause atmospheric CO2 to condense out onto the surface, similar to the polar ice caps on Mars. The…