{"id":29991,"date":"2012-05-06T03:35:21","date_gmt":"2012-05-06T07:35:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetsave.com\/?p=29991"},"modified":"2012-05-06T03:35:21","modified_gmt":"2012-05-06T07:35:21","slug":"new-evidence-of-water-on-early-mars-and-a-climate-like-earths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetsave.com\/articles\/new-evidence-of-water-on-early-mars-and-a-climate-like-earths\/","title":{"rendered":"New Evidence of Water on Early Mars, and a Climate Like the Earth's"},"content":{"rendered":"
New research supports the theory that early Mars had a thick, wet atmosphere, and a climate similar to the Earth’s climate now.<\/p>\n The atmosphere of Mars is currently less than 1% the density of Earth’s atmosphere. That’s one of the main reasons that the Earth’s climate is wet and Mars is very dry.<\/p>\n As research suggesting that early Mars had a more Earth-like climate has been accumulating, more scientists have been researching the atmosphere of early Mars.<\/p>\n <\/a> The new findings, just published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters<\/em>,\u00a0provide evidence that early Mars was saturated with water, and that its atmosphere was at least 20 times thicker than it is now.<\/p>\n “Atmospheric pressure has likely played a role in developing almost all Mars’ surface features,” said Dufek, an instructor in the School Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. “The planet’s climate, the physical state of water on its surface and the potential for life are all influenced by atmospheric conditions.”<\/p>\n
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\nAssistant Professor Josef Dufek, of Georgia Tech has been researching it by analyzing ancient volcanic eruptions and surface observations from NASA’s Mars land rover, Spirit.<\/p>\n