Study Finds There Are Two Types of Water on Mars

While the Red Planet is composed of a core, mantle, crust, and atmosphere, implying that Mars formed in a way similar to Earth, however, scientists have now determined there are at least two different types of water in Mars reservoirs, suggesting the planet may have obtained its hydrogen from outside forces, IFLScience.com reports. 

In an attempt to understand where this water may have come from, researchers at the University of Arizona chemically analyzed two Martian meteorites known to have interacted with fluids contained below Mars’ surface. Two types of hydrogen were found to exist within their contents – “light hydrogen”, which contained only a proton in its nucleus, and “heavy hydrogen”, which contained both a proton and neutron in its nucleus. These two different types of hydrogen suggest that over the planet’s history, at least two different celestial objects with different water contents may have collided and never mixed.

“The prevailing hypothesis before we started this work was that the interior of Mars was more Earthlike and unfractionated, and so the variability in hydrogen isotope ratios within Martian samples was due to either terrestrial contamination or atmospheric implantation as it made its way off Mars,” Jessica Barns, assistant professor of planetary sciences at the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, said in a statement. 

Read the full study in Nature Geoscience.