Found new evidence of ancient oceans on Mars

The US Aeronautics Agency (NASA) found new evidence of the ancient ocean on Mars, about the size of the Arctic Ocean.

>> Mars once had a huge ocean

The image simulates Mars about 4 billion years ago.(Graphics: NASA)

According to the New York Times, the size of this ocean is equivalent to the Arctic Ocean on Earth, covering the sunken plain of the northern hemisphere for millions of years.

"The existence of an ocean north of Mars has been debated for decades, but for the first time we have a clear set of data from all over the planet," said Michael Mumma, author The report was published yesterday in Science magazine. "Data show that there used to be an ocean in the north".

Mumma and Geronimo Villanueva, planetary scientist at NASA, measure two different forms of water in the Martian atmosphere. One is H2O that is familiar, consisting of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. The other form of water is slightly heavier than the HDO, in which the nucleus of a hydrogen atom contains a neutron. This atom is called deuterium.

Two forms exist in the predicted rate on Earth, and are found in meteorites in Mars. A large amount of slightly heavier water on Mars shows that there has been more "lighter" water, but it is lost when the planet changes.

Scientists found deuterium in the Martian atmosphere 8 times higher than water on Earth. Villanueva said this finding "helps to make a certain estimate of the amount of Martian water ever, by determining the amount of water that has disappeared into the universe."

"Perhaps 4.3 billion years ago, Mars had enough water to cover the surface, with a depth of at least 137 m," Villanueva said.