Mars Not Dead But Merely Sleeping, Orbiter's Gas Readings Suggest

ALBA MONS, MARS — An international team of researchers reports that gas detected by a European Space Agency orbiter suggests the planet Mars retains enough internal heat to be volcanically active, and that its depths may not be lifeless. The findings, published in the journal Science Advances, were described by the Daily Star as a "smoking gun".

According to the account, the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter first reported hydrogen chloride in the Martian atmosphere in 2021. The gas is commonly found escaping from magmatic vents on Earth. It normally varies with the seasons, peaking in northern winter and mostly vanishing in summer, a pattern linked chiefly to Mars's dust and water cycles.

One exception was noted. Each early summer, at the same place, the gas appeared above volcanic fissures on the flanks of Alba Mons. Images from the orbiter's CaSSIS camera showed fresh, narrow fissures, some hundreds of metres long, with colour changes on the surface that the team believes may be deposits left by escaping gases.

Professor Daniel Mege, a study co-leader at the Polish Academy of Sciences' Space Research Centre, said the findings suggest Mars "possibly still" supports volcanic activity. The researchers propose that ice blocks the fissures in winter and releases the gas as it sublimates in early summer. They link the seepage to a dormant magma chamber.

The headline claim of life is, by the researchers' own telling, a matter of possibility. They say that if lava meets groundwater, warm habitable niches could form, and that hydrothermal systems, if active, might hold the ingredients for microorganisms. Professor Mege suggests that looking for Martian life in the fissures "would make a lot of sense." The report notes that no new lava flows or eruptions have ever been observed on Mars.

Dr Colin Wilson, the agency's project scientist for the orbiter, said the findings may prove to be the spacecraft's greatest success yet.