Check your subscription status, update your details and more. It's unclear how and why Mars once became warm enough to allow water to flow on its surface, but a new idea suggests it comes down to rust below the surface Mars once had a climate that kept it warm enough for water to flow on the surface. But scientists haven’t been able to agree on an atmospheric recipe with enough warming potential.
A new proposal says that hot water circulating underground produced a missing ingredient. Water reacting with iron in Mars’s crust may have delivered a steady supply of hydrogen to the atmosphere for millions of years, says Cin-Ty Lee at Rice University in Texas. While not a greenhouse gas itself, hydrogen can have a planet-warming effect through its interactions with atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Collisions between the H2 and CO2 molecules deform both of them, and this makes them absorb wavelengths of infrared radiation that CO2 by itself doesn’t block, so the molecule pairs enhance the greenhouse effect. Receive a weekly dose of discovery in your inbox. We'll also keep you up to date with _New Scientist_ events and special offers. #### Space ### Read an extract from Dark Eden by Chris Beckett Culture #### Space ### There may be a new dwarf planet just beyond Pluto News #### Space ### Tiny ‘solar flares’ recreated in the lab may explain corona mystery News #### Space ### Why the Drake equation is still important 65 years after its creation Comment Does Sabrina Pasterski’s holographic theory make her the next Einstein?### Your brain’s unexpected ability to regenerate and how to harness it### How did the biggest crypto heist in history just happen?### Hannah Fry: I lost my dad to Alzheimer’s.
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