Researchers Solve One Of The Biggest Mysteries About How Water Flows On Mars (gizmodo.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Not only is water flowing on Mars, it's also boiling. This experiment published today in Nature Geoscience solves one of the major mysteries about the surface of the red planet. Gizmodo writes, "Researchers built a chamber simulating the conditions and atmosphere of Mars, then put ice in there to melt. The ice did melt and the water from it flowed -- but there was also a surprise. The surface of the water boiled as it flowed, and that boiling was strong enough to move not just the water but also dirt and debris surrounding the streams. Importantly, temperature was not the major factor in this boiling water, it was due to the pressure of the atmosphere." You may remember pictures of flowing water on Mars which surfaced last year. One would think the summer temperatures should be too cold for water to flow on Mars (as seen in the images), however, the water that flows on Mars is a salty-brine which lowers the freezing point of the water. So how does the water manage to carve out the landscape so quickly and visibly? Easy: the boiling water theory. Boiling water hits a boiling stage along its surface, where it kicks up dust and dirt and debris in the water's wake. The research team did see the boiling water move debris, but they also saw collapses along the sides of the flows. The boiling and disturbance it causes etches those lines on Mars clearly enough for satellites to notice them.

Comments

Re:This is not intuitively obvious... *HOW*?!?

[Irate Engineer]

This is not intuitively obvious to people who memorized PV = nRT in grade school *HOW*?!?

Who was this exactly a mystery *from*?

Because it has nothing to do with the ideal gas law.

They are talking about the saturation or vaporization curve of water which is a function of pressure and temperature. At 1 atm water boils at 212F. On Mars where the pressure is lower, it boils at a much lower temperature.

This boiling behavior is not new or unexpected. What is new is the understanding about how this vaporization process can move sediments on Mars. That's the new science.