Stability against freezing of aqueous solutions on early Mars

Alberto G. Fairén (), Alfonso F. Davila, Luis Gago-Duport, Ricardo Amils and Christopher P. McKay
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Alberto G. Fairén: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California 94035, USA
Alfonso F. Davila: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California 94035, USA
Luis Gago-Duport: Universidad de Vigo, Lagoas Marcosende, Vigo 36200, Spain
Ricardo Amils: Centro de Astrobiología, CSIC-INTA, Torrejón de Ardoz 28850, Madrid, Spain
Christopher P. McKay: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California 94035, USA

Nature, 2009, vol. 459, issue 7245, 401-404

Abstract: Martian water runs cold The observation that many features of the Martian landscape appear to have been formed by liquid water sits uncomfortably with the fact that models of the early Martian climate suggest that global mean surface temperatures were rarely above 0 °C. Fairén et al. offer a possible resolution to this paradox. They model the freezing and evaporation processes of Martian fluids assuming a chemical composition produced by the weathering of basalts, as reflected in the data obtained from Mars landing sites. They find that a significant fraction of weathering fluids loaded with solutes remain in the liquid state at temperatures well below 0 °C. This suggests that the surface features that we see were carved out by flows of saline liquid water.

Date: 2009
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DOI: 10.1038/nature07978

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