(ORDO NEWS) — Mars is infamous for its violent dust storms, some of which kick up enough dust to be visible in telescopes on Earth.
When dust particles rub against each other, as they do during Martian dust storms, they can become electrified, transferring positive and negative electrical charges in the same way that you build up static electricity when you shuffle across a carpet.
Dust storms create strong electric fields on Earth, so it’s perhaps not surprising that this also happens on Mars. But what happens next? This is probably not a sudden flash of lightning, as we might expect on Earth.
Instead, planetary scientist Alian Wang of Washington University in St. Louis thinks the electrical discharge on Mars is likely more like a faint glow. (None of the Mars landers, rovers, or other missions captured the real picture of it.)
“It could be like aurora in the polar regions on Earth, where energetic electrons collide with dilute atmospheric materials,” Wang said.
A new study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters shows that electricity during dust storms may be the main driver of the Martian chlorine cycle.
As a premise, scientists view chlorine as one of five elements that are “mobile” on Mars (the others being hydrogen, oxygen, carbon and sulfur).
This means that chlorine in various forms moves back and forth between the surface and the atmosphere of Mars.
Chloride deposits are widespread on the earth, which are similar to saline stretches or shallow salt marshes on Earth.
These chloride deposits likely formed in the early history of Mars as precipitated chloride salts from brine.
In the new study, Wang shows that one particularly effective way to move chlorine from the ground into the air on Mars is through a reaction triggered by an electrical discharge from Martian dust.
Wang and her collaborators conducted a series of experiments that produced high yields of chlorine gas from common chlorides, all by exposing solid salts to an electrical discharge under Martian-like conditions.
They conducted these experiments using the Planetary Simulation Chamber at the University of Washington (called the Planetary Environment and Analysis Chamber, or PEACh).
“The high rate of chlorine release from common chlorides identified in this study points to a promising pathway for the conversion of surface chlorides into gas phases that we are now seeing in the atmosphere,” said Kevin Olsen, a researcher at the Open University in the United Kingdom and co-author of the study. new research.
“These results support the fact that Martian dust activity could lead to a global chlorine cycle. With the ExoMars Trace gas orbiter, we are seeing recurring seasonal activity that coincides with global and regional dust storms,” Olsen said.
“Electrification by friction is a common process in our solar system, and the activity of Martian dust is known to be a powerful source of electrical charge accumulation.
The rarefied atmosphere on Mars greatly facilitates the destruction of accumulated electric fields in the form of an electrostatic discharge. In fact, it’s a hundred times easier on Mars than on Earth.”
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