This past February, a team from PVL once again descended on the Canadian Light Source (CLS), pictured above, to learn more about the conditions that prevailed in the atmosphere of early Mars and maybe even to learn something that could help current-day orbiters understand their results.
By Charissa Campbell
Recently, some of the PVL team traveled back to the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon to perform more experiments at the Canadian Light Source (CLS). Our first trip was discussed by project lead, Dr. Paul Godin in a previous PVL blog post (http://york-pvl.blogspot.com/2018/11/searching-for-liquid-water-on-mars-at.html). Unfortunately our U of T member (Tyler Wizenberg) could not attend this trip because he was traveling to the arctic for experiments at the same time. To fill his shoes, PVL PhD candidate Giang Nguyen tagged along.
For some background information, the purpose of these experiments is to better understand how liquid water could have existed on the surface of early Mars. Currently, Mars atmospheric models have not been able to show the surface temperature rising above 0°C. However, abundant evidence of erosion by water has been seen from orbit and there are surface geological experiments pointing towards liquid water having been present on the surface (https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4398).
For some background information, the purpose of these experiments is to better understand how liquid water could have existed on the surface of early Mars. Currently, Mars atmospheric models have not been able to show the surface temperature rising above 0°C. However, abundant evidence of erosion by water has been seen from orbit and there are surface geological experiments pointing towards liquid water having been present on the surface (https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4398).
If water erosion is evident then there must be another explanation for warming in the ancient Martian atmosphere that current atmospheric models cannot explain. This is where our experiment comes in: looking at the collision-induced absorption (CIA) of greenhouse gases to test a theory from Wordsworth et al. (https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL071766) that these gases might provide additional atmospheric absorption not currently included in models that would allow surface temperatures to rise. If our experiments agree with Wordsworth's models, it may be another piece to the puzzle towards understanding water and early Mars.
