Scientists Believe Mars Will Not Be Able To Have Life

The diameter of Mars is only 53 percent or half the size of Earth. (photo: doc. NASA)

JAKARTA - A planetary scientist Kun Wang from Washington University in St. Louis revealed an interesting fact that the Planet Mars will never have life. Wang reasoned, because the size of Mars is much different from the habitable Earth.

"The fate of Mars was predetermined from the start," Wang said.

According to Wang's research published in PNAS and quoted from Science Alert, Thursday, September 23, this is due to the difference in size. The diameter of Mars is only 53 percent, or half the size of Earth, and that would make it impossible for Mars to depend on volatile substances vital to life, such as water.

"It's possible that not all rocky planets can hold enough water to allow for habitability and plate tectonics, with masses exceeding that of Mars," Wang said.

While there are many differences between Earth and the other terrestrial planets in the Solar System, it can be difficult to ascertain which factors are viable for life, and which are hindering them.

To support life, one thing that life on Earth needs is water. So if there is water on a planet it means the planet is habitable. Mars used to have a water surface, this is evident in the Martian meteorites that erupt from Earth, excavated from the Red Planet when the Solar System was young.

However, right now all that is visible is Mars covered in dust, dry and desolate, even every water on its surface is frozen. The transition from a relatively wet planet to arid dusty areas is sometimes associated with the loss of Mars' magnetic field.

"Mars meteorites are the only samples available to us to study the chemical makeup of Mars," Wang said.

The Martian meteorites range in age from a few hundred million to four billion years and record the evolutionary history of Martian volatility. Through measurements of isotopes of moderately volatile elements, such as potassium, Wang was able to deduce the rate of depletion of mass planet volatiles and make comparisons between different Solar System bodies.

The results show that Mars lost more volatiles than Earth during its formation, but retained more than the Moon and Vesta, both significantly smaller and drier than Mars.

Previous research has found that Mars was once very wet. This new correlation between gravity and volatile retention could help limit how much water Mars once had.

In addition, one of the factors that influence the presence of liquid water on the planet's surface is its temperature, which is related to its proximity to its parent star. Too close the water evaporates, too far away it freezes.

"Based on size and mass, we now know whether an extrasolar planet is a candidate for life, because the first-order determinant for volatile retention is size," Wang said.