Mars may have less water than previously estimated

The Oden Institute and Jackson School of Geosciences have developed an improved model for predicting the flow of water on Mars that is more accurate and elegant.

Around four billion years ago, Mars is thought to have collided with an entity.

It is believed that a large number of asteroids collided with Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars during the Late Heavy Bombardment. There are a lot of impact craters on the surface of Mars. The event is believed to have created the northern lowland, so large it is visible from space.

The basin is believed to have once held a large body of water. The study entitled "Estimates of Martian Mean Recharge Rates from Analytic Groundwater Models" is being pursued in collaboration with Eric Hiatt. The Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, Jackson School of Geosciences, Institute for Geophysics, and Center for Planetary Systems Habitability collaborated.

Shadab said that they developed analytic solutions for a steady unconfined groundwater aquifer beneath the southern highlands of Noachian Mars.

They used the models to explore self-consistent combinations of precipitation and conductivities.

Scientists have relied on the more straightforward method of mapping in the past. The previous Martians were not flat-earthers. The earlier simplified models were found to be way off the mark.

No one had incorporated a spherical coordinate despite the fact that planets are spherical. Why? It requires more complex mathematics.

Simple is not the right word to use. He said that the model was supported by 3D simulations on a complicated geometry with craters and shorelines developed by his co-collaborators at the Jackson School.

The northern part of Mars is headless. The northern lowlands have very deep holes. The southern highlands are more mountainous and dominate the landscape.

The research team made a model for a hypothetical ocean in the northern lowlands that is connected to the southern highlands.

More information: Estimates of Martian Mean Recharge Rates from Analytic Groundwater Models. ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2022 … o2678.1775S/abstract Citation: Mars may have less water than previously estimated (2022, April 26) retrieved 26 April 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-04-mars-previously.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.