Sluggish hydrodynamic escape of early martian atmosphere with reduced chemical compositions

Yoshida, Tatsuya; Kuramoto, Kiyoshi

doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2020.113740

Cited by 16 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Zahnle et al (2019) also found that under their assumptions in the homosphere (lower thermosphere) where CO 2 is abundant, radiative heating and radiative cooling are in balance, the temperature of the gas is determined by the bulk gas and very little energy is channeled into hydrogen escape. This is also in agreement with a study of Yoshida and Kuramoto (2020) who investigated the hydrodynamic hydrogen escape from an assumed reduced early Mars' atmosphere where they considered carbon compounds as radiative coolants.…”

supporting

confidence: 90%

The young Sun's XUV-activity as a constraint for lower CO$_2$-limits in the Earth's Archean atmosphere

Johnstone,

Lammer,

Kislyakova

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Despite their importance for determining the evolution of the Earth's atmosphere and surface conditions, the evolutionary histories of the Earth's atmospheric CO 2 abundance during the Archean eon and the Sun's activity are poorly constrained. In this study, we apply a state-of-the-art physical model for the upper atmosphere of the Archean Earth to study the effects of different atmospheric CO 2 /N 2 mixing ratios and solar activity levels on the escape of the atmosphere to space. We find that unless CO 2 was a major constituent of the atmosphere during the Archean eon, enhanced heating of the thermosphere by the Sun's strong X-ray and ultraviolet radiation would have caused rapid escape to space. We derive lower limits on the atmospheric CO 2 abundance of approximately 40% at 3.8 billion years ago, which is likely enough to counteract the faint young Sun and keep the Earth from being completely frozen. Furthermore, our results indicate that the Sun was most likely born as a slow to moderate rotating young G-star to prevent rapid escape, putting essential constraints on the Sun's activity evolution

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supporting

confidence: 90%

The young Sun's XUV-activity as a constraint for lower CO$_2$-limits in the Earth's Archean atmosphere

Johnstone,

Lammer,

Kislyakova

et al. 2021

Preprint

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“…Even if a tiny hydrogen envelope could remain afterwards, it would be lost within less than 1 million years or even faster due to strong EUV-driven hydrodynamic escape (N. V. Erkaev et al, 2014;Massol et al, 2016). Strong escape rates of a hypothetical proto-atmosphere were recently also found by Yoshida and Kuramoto (2020) who investigated the loss of a primordial Martian atmosphere that consisted of a hydrogen-dominated solar and a degassed reduced component, together consisting mainly of H2, CH4 and CO. While in the case of Erkaev et al (2014), all the CO2 molecules were assumed to be dissociated by the strong solar EUV flux, a significant fraction of the CH4 and CO molecules survived in the lower region of the atmosphere, as studied by Yoshida and Kuramoto (2020), thereby leading to radiative cooling.…”

Section: Martian Formation Timescale and Its Potential Primordial Hyd...mentioning

confidence: 89%

“…But there are some studies that modelled and discussed the escape of its early atmosphere (Tian et al, 2009;Lammer et al, 2013;N. V Erkaev et al, 2014a;Yoshida and Kuramoto, 2020). Odert et al (2018) studied, in addition, the escape of steam atmospheres from Mars-sized planetary embryos at different orbital locations around the Sun.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Did Mars Possess a Dense Atmosphere During the First $\sim400$ Million Years?

Scherf

Lämmer

2020

Space Sci Rev

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It is not yet entirely clear whether Mars began as a warm and wet planet that evolved towards the present-day cold and dry body or if it always was cold and dry with just some sporadic episodes of liquid water on its surface. An important clue into this question can be gained by studying the earliest evolution of the Martian atmosphere and whether it was dense and stable to maintain a warm and wet climate or tenuous and susceptible to strong atmospheric escape. In this review we therefore discuss relevant aspects for the evolution and stability of a potential early Martian atmosphere. This contains the EUV flux evolution of the young Sun, the formation timescale and volatile inventory of the planet including volcanic degassing, impact delivery and removal, the loss of the catastrophically outgassed steam atmosphere, atmosphere-surface interactions, as well as thermal and non-thermal escape processes affecting a potential secondary atmosphere at early Mars. While early non-thermal escape at Mars before 4 billion years ago is poorly understood, in particular in view of its ancient intrinsic magnetic field, research on thermal escape processes and the stability of a CO2-dominated atmosphere around Mars against high EUV fluxes indicate that volatile delivery and volcanic degassing cannot counterbalance the strong thermal escape. Therefore, a catastrophically

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“…Depending on its amount, such a dense atmosphere might be left for ∼100 Myrs timescale. For instance, a recent study (Yoshida and Kuramoto, 2020) suggested that the reducing remnants of Mars' primordial atmosphere, if existed, may contribute to warm early Mars (Ramirez et al, 2014;Ramirez, 2017;Wordsworth et al, 2017) and to form organic matters found to be preserved at Gale crater (Eigenbrode et al, 2018). In contrast, if the abundant Ne was sourced by chondritic or cometary matters, bulk Mars and, consequently, its early atmosphere could be more oxidizing.…”

Section: Implications For the Surface Environment Of Early Marsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mars' atmospheric neon suggests volatile-rich primitive mantle

Kurokawa,

Miura,

Sugita

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Martian atmospheric neon (Ne) has been detected by Viking and also found as trapped gas in Martian meteorites, though its abundance and isotopic composition have not been well determined. Because the timescale of Ne loss via atmospheric escape estimated from recent measurements with MAVEN is short (0.6-1 × 10 8 years), the abundance and isotope composition of Martian atmospheric Ne reflect recent atmospheric gas supply mostly from volcanic degassing. Thus, it can serve as a probe for the volatile content of the interior. Here we show that the tentatively-informed atmospheric Ne abundance suggests recent active volcanism and the mantle being richer in Ne than Earth's mantle today by more than a factor of 5-80. The estimated mantle Ne abundance requires efficient solar nebular gas capture or accretion of Ne-rich materials such as solar-wind-implanted dust in the planet formation stage, both of which provide important constraints on the abundance of other volatile elements in the interior and the accretion history of Mars. More precise determination of atmospheric Ne abundance and isotopic composition by in situ analysis or Mars sample return is crucial for distinguishing

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Sluggish hydrodynamic escape of early martian atmosphere with reduced chemical compositions

Cited by 16 publications

References 33 publications

The young Sun's XUV-activity as a constraint for lower CO$_2$-limits in the Earth's Archean atmosphere

The young Sun's XUV-activity as a constraint for lower CO$_2$-limits in the Earth's Archean atmosphere

Did Mars Possess a Dense Atmosphere During the First $\sim400$ Million Years?

Mars' atmospheric neon suggests volatile-rich primitive mantle

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