Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God,...
Hebrews 11:3
"Measurements of Martian atmospheric loss rates imply incredible changes over the assumed billions of years of Mars’ history.
Either Mars is younger than thought, or its atmosphere was unbelievable billions of years ago. The MAVEN spacecraft (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution), launched in 2013, has taken atmospheric escape measurements for an entire Martian year. A Mars year is 687 Earth-days. How fast is gas being lost from the atmosphere? Quick answer is 1 to 2 kilograms per second. A report in Icarus does the math for assumptions that Mars formed 4.5 billion years ago.
Hebrews 11:3
"Measurements of Martian atmospheric loss rates imply incredible changes over the assumed billions of years of Mars’ history.
Either Mars is younger than thought, or its atmosphere was unbelievable billions of years ago. The MAVEN spacecraft (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution), launched in 2013, has taken atmospheric escape measurements for an entire Martian year. A Mars year is 687 Earth-days. How fast is gas being lost from the atmosphere? Quick answer is 1 to 2 kilograms per second. A report in Icarus does the math for assumptions that Mars formed 4.5 billion years ago.
The loss rate extrapolated back in time gives an estimate of the total loss of gas to space and its impact on Martian climate history; an estimated 0.8 bars or more of CO2 likely has been lost.A bar is the pressure of one Earth atmosphere at sea level. For a planet as small as Mars, that’s a lot of gas to lose. The lost hydrogen and oxygen alone could have covered the planet 75 feet deep in water!
The H loss rate is not measured directly, but can be calculated from the H abundance assuming
or deriving a coronal temperature. For the range in observed column abundance and temperature, the loss rate varies between ~ 1-11 x 1026 H atoms s-1. This is equivalent to a loss rate of ~ 160-1800 grams of H per second (g H s-1); assuming all of the H is coming from H2O, this is the equivalent of removal of about 1,400 – 16,000 g H2O s-1. At this rate, H from the entire column of atmospheric water at present (nominally, about 10 precipitable micrometers, or 10-3 g/cm2) would be removed in about 3,000 – 30,000 years. Over 4.2 b.y., loss at this rate would remove a global layer of water between ~ 3.6-25 m thick (see Table 2). Although we’ve expressed this as loss of water, these measurements refer to the loss of H only; we expect O from water to be lost as well, but the O loss is complicated by the fact that it also can come from CO2.
At minimum the global water layer would be 12 feet deep (3.6 m). At maximum, it would be 82 feet deep (25 m). The estimated carbon dioxide lost (0.8 bar) is also highly significant. CO2 is the remaining primary constituent of the Martian atmosphere, freezing out at the poles in seasonal cycles.
One significant aspect of these measurements is that they are probably lower limits. Several times in the paper, the authors remark that the loss rates could have been higher in the past: e.g., “These loss rates could be a lower limit if there are mechanisms for loss that have not been identified or observed.”......If the conservative estimate is in fact off by several orders of magnitude, would that require a global ocean kilometers deep billions of years ago? A similar error exists for the carbon dioxide esimate: “the 0.8-bar loss described earlier again is likely to be a conservative lower limit on total loss, conceivably by orders of magnitude.” Nowhere do they say their figures might represent an upper limit.
On January 18, NASA’s Mars Exploration website headlined, “Dust Storms Linked to Gas Escape from Mars Atmosphere.” Measurements in that prior study indicated that gas loss is not in a steady state, as earlier believed, but becomes amplified during dust storms. The storms heave water vapor up high into the atmosphere, where it is more prone to escape.
If these extrapolations billions of years into the past are reasonable, they imply a very, very different Mars than what we observe today. “Loss to space has been the major process driving climate change on Mars,” they note. The Mars we see today is dominated by sand dunes, a crackling-dry atmosphere charged with static electricty, a surface too cold for liquid water, dust devils, large shield volcanoes, a deep dry canyon thousands of miles long, and global dust storms like the one enveloping Mars right now (Phys.org). Are planetary scientists prepared to deal with a Mars possessing a thicker atmosphere than the Earth, covered possibly in a deep ocean of water? How did that form outside the habitable zone of a dimmer sun?
How much did Mars have to dry out before those volcanoes and dunes could even begin to form? The measured loss rate appears to put them in a hopeless bind: their view of Martian history contradicts the loss rate of the atmosphere. Creationists, get out your calculators; a clear alternative solution is that Mars is not billions of years old."
CEH
At minimum the global water layer would be 12 feet deep (3.6 m). At maximum, it would be 82 feet deep (25 m). The estimated carbon dioxide lost (0.8 bar) is also highly significant. CO2 is the remaining primary constituent of the Martian atmosphere, freezing out at the poles in seasonal cycles.
One significant aspect of these measurements is that they are probably lower limits. Several times in the paper, the authors remark that the loss rates could have been higher in the past: e.g., “These loss rates could be a lower limit if there are mechanisms for loss that have not been identified or observed.”......If the conservative estimate is in fact off by several orders of magnitude, would that require a global ocean kilometers deep billions of years ago? A similar error exists for the carbon dioxide esimate: “the 0.8-bar loss described earlier again is likely to be a conservative lower limit on total loss, conceivably by orders of magnitude.” Nowhere do they say their figures might represent an upper limit.
On January 18, NASA’s Mars Exploration website headlined, “Dust Storms Linked to Gas Escape from Mars Atmosphere.” Measurements in that prior study indicated that gas loss is not in a steady state, as earlier believed, but becomes amplified during dust storms. The storms heave water vapor up high into the atmosphere, where it is more prone to escape.
If these extrapolations billions of years into the past are reasonable, they imply a very, very different Mars than what we observe today. “Loss to space has been the major process driving climate change on Mars,” they note. The Mars we see today is dominated by sand dunes, a crackling-dry atmosphere charged with static electricty, a surface too cold for liquid water, dust devils, large shield volcanoes, a deep dry canyon thousands of miles long, and global dust storms like the one enveloping Mars right now (Phys.org). Are planetary scientists prepared to deal with a Mars possessing a thicker atmosphere than the Earth, covered possibly in a deep ocean of water? How did that form outside the habitable zone of a dimmer sun?
How much did Mars have to dry out before those volcanoes and dunes could even begin to form? The measured loss rate appears to put them in a hopeless bind: their view of Martian history contradicts the loss rate of the atmosphere. Creationists, get out your calculators; a clear alternative solution is that Mars is not billions of years old."
CEH