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Its estimated Mars had at atmosphere for the first billion years. But loss is not linear. The less you have, the faster it's eroded. So to rebuild it, might wa
by JoeAltmaier 6y ago
Its estimated Mars had at atmosphere for the first billion years. But loss is not linear. The less you have, the faster it's eroded.
So to rebuild it, might want to quickly get to a sustainable value before its blown away again? I favor crashing Saturn's icy asteroids into Mars to release gigatons of water vapor.
- cogman10 6y agoIsn't it the reverse? The more atmosphere is present the faster it erodes away?
- JoeAltmaier 6y agoNot according to the papers.
- cogman10 6y agoWhich papers? That's really counter intuitive to me. I'd expect that a higher atmosphere concentration would have a higher rate of loss because the solar wind would grab more of it. Does this mean that mars is losing atmosphere faster today than it did 500million years ago? That's really fascinating!
- JoeAltmaier 6y agoCan't find it now. Curiosity has an instrument to measure isotopes, which tells how its air chemistry changed over the aeons. It showed disparity in heavy vs light gasses trapped in rocks of different ages. Light gasses are lost first, so that gave a clock on atmosphere loss. And a profile of that loss over time. Here's a sunday-supplement summary I did find: https://science.time.com/2013/07/23/revealed-how-mars-lost-its-atmosphere/ https://science.time.com/2013/07/23/revealed-how-mars-lost-i...