The phrase
"hydrogen escape" refers to the process in which hydrogen gas, found in an atmosphere or a body of water, slowly escapes or leaves its original location.
Full definition
But he says the argument would be more persuasive if it explained why the crust would have absorbed the excess oxygen produced
by hydrogen escape.
«Now that we know such large changes occur, we think
of hydrogen escape from Mars less as a slow and steady leak and more as an episodic flow — rising and falling with season and perhaps punctuated by strong bursts,» said Michael Chaffin, a scientist at the University of Colorado at Boulder who is on the Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) team.
«Now that we know such large changes occur, we think of
hydrogen escape from Mars less as a slow and steady leak and more as an episodic flow — rising and falling with season and perhaps punctuated by strong bursts,» said Michael Chaffin, a scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics who is on the Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) team.
Previous studies have indicated that Mars, which was once covered in an ocean about 100 meters deep, lost the bulk of its water
through hydrogen escape (SN Online: 10/15/14).
«MAVEN is giving us unprecedented detail
about hydrogen escape from the upper atmosphere of Mars, and this is crucial for helping us figure out the total amount of water lost over billions of years,» said Ali Rahmati, a MAVEN team member at the University of California at Berkeley who analyzed data from two of the spacecraft's instruments.
All of the remaining reactors, however, will remain offline until they have been upgraded to meet extended safety requirements, such such as the provision of alternative power supplies, multiple sources of cooling water, back - up control rooms and venting to
prevent hydrogen escape.
Sophisticated measurements made by a suite of instruments on the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, spacecraft revealed the ups and downs
of hydrogen escape — and therefore water loss.
But Catling's team proposes instead that
the hydrogen escaped into space through a process called methane photolysis, in which the hydrogen - containing methane reacts with oxygen such that hydrogen atoms are freed.
As the water boiled away,
the hydrogen escaped into interstellar space while the oxygen came back down and bonded with carbon atoms.
MAVEN has been tracking
the hydrogen escape without interruption over the course of a Martian year, which lasts nearly two Earth years.
As a result, the planet's early ocean evaporated, water - vapor molecules were broken apart by ultraviolet radiation, and
hydrogen escaped to space.
Sophisticated measurements made by a suite of instruments on the MAVEN spacecraft revealed the ups and downs of
hydrogen escape — and therefore water loss.