Journal
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
Volume 40, Issue 21, Pages 5605-5609Publisher
AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION
DOI: 10.1002/2013GL057763
Keywords
planetary atmospheres; argon isotopes; solar system; Mars; habitability; atmospheric loss
Categories
Funding
- NASA Mars Science Laboratory Project
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The quadrupole mass spectrometer of the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument on Curiosity rover has made the first high-precision measurement of the nonradiogenic argon isotope ratio in the atmosphere of Mars. The resulting value of Ar-36/Ar-38=4.20.1 is highly significant for it provides excellent evidence that Mars meteorites are indeed of Martian origin, and it points to a significant loss of argon of at least 50% and perhaps as high as 85-95% from the atmosphere of Mars in the past 4 billion years. Taken together with the isotopic fractionations in N, C, H, and O measured by SAM, these results imply a substantial loss of atmosphere from Mars in the posthydrodynamic escape phase.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available