New water map of Mars reveals water was everywhere (PICTURES+VIDEO)  

ESA and NASA collaboration

By synthesizing data collected over the past decade by ESA’s Mars Express and NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, scientists have been able to create a detailed water map of Mars. The map records the locations of hydrous minerals, that is, those that have been affected by the presence of water, such as clay.

The map therefore reveals that wherever one finds himself on Mars, there are signs of water, since there are hundreds of thousands of records, especially in the most ancient parts of the planet.

In fact, by studying the minerals, we can also calculate how much water has existed on the surface of Mars in the past. The more water there has been, the more it has changed the final resulting mineral. The result shows us that there are not many places on Mars that have not been changed by water at some point in its history. Unraveling this tangle will require quite a bit of analysis.

The evolution from significant presence of water to absence of water is not as clear cut as we thought and water did not disappear in one day. We see a huge variety of geological features that tells us that no one process and no time frame can explain the evolution of Martian mineralogy. This is only the first result of our study. The second is that if you exclude Earth’s biological processes, Mars has a variety of mineralogy at a geological level similar to Earth’s.

The question of whether water on Mars was continuous or periodic remains unanswered. Was it around for a long period of time or did it disappear and reappear at regular intervals?

Knowing where and in what percentage each mineral is present gives us a better idea of ​​how those minerals may have formed.

The final question to be answered is how Mars came to be the dry and barren world we know. By answering this, we may also get answers about how the Earth did not follow his path.

The two papers were published in Icarus and can be found here and here .