Water Leaking from Mars' Atmosphere: Experts Say it is Due to Changing Seasons and Dust Storms

Two recent studies found that Mars' atmosphere is leaking water into space through swirling Martian storms and the changing of the season.

It is an undeniable fact that water is on Mars. However, it only seems to exists in ice caps at the Red Planet's poles or as gas in its thin atmosphere. Water has been seeping out of Mars for billions of years since it lost the magnetic field that took along with it the planet's water and air. The two recent studies show how much water moves in and out of Mars' atmosphere.

Leaking Water on Mars

Anna Fedorova, lead researcher at the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Science; and Jean-Yves Chaufray, lead author and scientists from the Labaratoire Atmospheres Observations Spatiales, France used data gathered by the ExoMars orbiter of the European Space Agency that began its science mission in 2018 and ESA's Mars Express orbiter to show the rate at which water escaped the Red Planets atmosphere.

The studies aimed to analyze the rate of water leaking from Mars' atmosphere and how it is determined by the changing weather and climate on the Red Planet and its distance from the Sun.

The study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets entitled, "Multi‐Annual Monitoring of the Water Vapor Vertical Distribution on Mars by SPICAM on Mars Express" and research published in the journal Icarus entitled "Study of the hydrogen escape rate at Mars during martian years 28 and 29 from comparisons between SPICAM/Mars express observations and GCM-LMD simulations" explore the mysteries of water leaking from Mars' atmosphere.

Fedorova says in an ESA statement that the planet's atmosphere is the link between space and its surface, which shows that it can tell more about how Mars lost its water.

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Studying Water on the Red Planet

In both studies, researchers used data from ExoMars' Spectroscopy for the Investigation of the Characteristics of the Atmosphere of Mars (SPICAM) that observed the Red Planet's atmosphere.

Fedorova explains that the team studied water vapor in the atmosphere, from the surface up to 100 kilometers in altitude, a region of the Martian atmosphere that has yet to be explored, for 8 martian years.

In comparison, two years on Earth is roughly one year on Mars.

Researchers discovered that when the planet is farthest from the Sun, at roughly 250 million miles away, water vapors in Mars' atmosphere only exist for less than 37 miles from the Red Planet's surface.

On the other hand, when the planet was closest to the sun, at roughly 207 million miles, water can be found as far as 56 miles above the planet's surface.

When the Red Planet is farthest from the sun, the cold freeze out water vapors in certain altitudes of mars' atmosphere, but as it gets closer and warmer, water circulates.

Because water vapor travels out farther in Mars' atmosphere during warmer seasons, these are also when the planet loses most of its water.