Skip to main content

Mars is losing water due to heat and dust storms, NASA finds

Scientists know that Mars once had oceans of liquid water on its surface, and billions of years ago it may even have looked like Earth. But over time, this water was lost into space, leaving the planet in the arid state we see it today. Just how this happened in an ongoing mystery for scientists to investigate, and now new evidence suggests that the planet’s heat and dust play a key role in launching water into space.

Researchers used data from NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN or MAVEN spacecraft, a Mars orbiter that collects data on the upper atmosphere. They found that Mars is still losing water as vapor is sucked up from polar ice caps during the martian summer.

Recommended Videos

“We were all surprised to find water so high in the atmosphere,” said Shane W. Stone, a doctoral student in planetary science at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in Tucson. “The measurements we used could have only come from MAVEN as it soars through the atmosphere of Mars, high above the planet’s surface.”

This artist concept shows the MAVEN spacecraft and the limb of Mars. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

In addition to warmer weather helping to move the water vapor, it is also affected by dust storms. These periodic storms have strong winds that help lift the water vapor higher. And once water vapor moves through the atmosphere, it is exposed to cosmic radiation and breaks apart into hydrogen and oxygen, which then escape into space.

“Everything that makes it up to the higher part of the atmosphere is destroyed, on Mars or on Earth,” Stone explained, “because this is the part of the atmosphere that is exposed to the full force of the Sun.”

The researchers found a particular storm over two days in June 2018 caused 20 times more water than normal to appear in the atmosphere. And in a 45-day period, Mars lost as much water as it normally does in one Mars year (around two Earth years). This means scientists need to adjust their models of how water moves and is lost from Mars.

“What’s unique about this discovery is that it provides us with a new pathway that we didn’t think existed for water to escape the Martian environment,” said Mehdi Benna, a Goddard planetary scientist and co-investigator of MAVEN’s NGIMS instrument. “It will fundamentally change our estimates of how fast water is escaping today and how fast it escaped in the past.”

Georgina Torbet
Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…
NASA has two ideas for how to get samples back from Mars
An illustration of NASA's Sample Return Lander shows it tossing a rocket in the air like a toy from the surface of Mars.

NASA has big goals for Mars. It wants to collect the first-ever samples from the Martian surface and deliver them back to Earth in an ambitious mission called Mars Sample Return. But even in its development phase, the mission has run into problems. With a ballooning budget and unrealistic time frame, NASA decided last year that it needed a new approach to the mission, and now it has announced an update. It's working on two ideas, with the best to be chosen in 2026.

“Pursuing two potential paths forward will ensure that NASA is able to bring these samples back from Mars with significant cost and schedule saving compared to the previous plan,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “These samples have the potential to change the way we understand Mars, our universe, and – ultimately – ourselves. I’d like to thank the team at NASA and the strategic review team, led by Dr. Maria Zuber, for their work.”

Read more
NASA orbiter captures one last image of retired InSight lander on Mars
This illustration shows NASA's InSight spacecraft with its instruments deployed on the Martian surface.

NASA's Insight lander spent four years on the surface of Mars, uncovering secrets of the planet's interior, but it eventually succumbed to the most martian of environmental threats: dust. Mars has periodic dust storms that can whip up into huge global events, lifting dust up into the air and then dumping it on everything in sight -- including solar panels. After years of accumulation, eventually the dust was so thick that Insight's solar panels could no longer generate enough power to keep it operational, and the mission officially came to an end in December 2022.

That wasn't quite the end of the story for InSight, though, as it is still being used for science to this day, albeit indirectly. Recently, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) caught a glimpse of InSight from orbit, capturing the lander's dusty surroundings and showing how even more dust had built up on it.

Read more
NASA’s Mars rover just emerged from Jezero Crater. So, what next?
Perseverance's view from the rim of Mars' Jezero Crater

NASA personnel are celebrating the news that its Perseverance rover has finally reached the top of the Mars’ Jezero Crater rim after a challenging climb that took three-and-a-half months to complete.

The six-wheeled rover ascended 1,640 feet (500 meters) and made stops along the way to conduct various science observations as it continues its search for signs of ancient microbial life on the red planet.

Read more