Question: why are you looking at climate change on Mars? Do you think we can live on Mars? If so that is so cool!

Lori-Ann Foley answered on 9 Mar 2020:

When people first saw close-up pictures of Mars, they could see it was just a dry desert, though we knew there were small ice caps at the north and south poles, like we have on Earth. But as more information came back to Earth over the years, and much better close-up pictures, people started seeing things like glaciers, which are covered in dirt, and what looked like deltas at the end of rivers (like the end of the Nile river in Egypt). And there were lots of places where it looked like water had run, with all the twists and turns we see with rivers on Earth.

So was there water in the past (we are fairly sure the answer is yes) but where did it go? We think some evaporated into the air and then escaped into space, as we know that Mars has lost lots of its atmosphere and is still losing it today. But some of it may be underground.

So it is really interesting to study how the climate on Mars may have been in the past and how it came to look like it does today. And if we ever want to live on Mars, then having a source of water is important – for drinking, for making oxygen so we can breath and for growing plants to eat. So we need to find out where it is.

I think we can live on Mars. It would be hard, as we would need to wear space suits outside, as we can’t breath the air there, and it is very cold a lot of the time. And our houses would nee to be sealed to keep the heat and air in, so we could work and live inside without space suits. But it would be totally amazing to go to another planet and I would love to. I study the weather of Mars and they would need a weather forecaster if they lived there, so sign me up! How’s about you? 🙂