Useless fact of the week
Welcome to the third episode of my weekly fact series. Today we will take a closer look at the one giant red ball next to the earth, known as Mars and his atmosphere to be more specific. Even though Mars is a direct neighbor of our planet, some phenomena give headache to researchers and will be unsolved for the next years. One of those phenomena is the behavior pattern of oxygen in his atmosphere.
The Mars-rover curiosity landed on mars in 2012 and collected tons of measurement data since then. One of those measures is the oxygen content. What's interesting about the percentage of oxygen in the Mars atmosphere is the fact, that it follows seasonal patterns. The amount of oxygen increases by up to 30% every spring and summer and decreases every autumn and winter. Unfortunately the amount of oxygen is still low compared to earth. Only around 0,146% of the atmosphere is oxygen, while 17% are considered the lowest amount human can survive without the help of breathing devices.
The cause of this variation is still a mystery for researchers. Different explanations were made, but most of them are considered as unlikely. At first breakup of carbon dioxide or water was discussed, but fast discarded due to the huge amounts of water needed to generate this effect. At next a leak of oxygen into space due to sunlight was considered, but also discarded as oxygen would take at least 10 years to leak into space. Biological causes are also unlikely to cause this phenomena according to scientists, but not impossible. The longer the search for a cause goes, the more likely is an explanation that no one ever thought of. I don't believe in existing life or aliens or whatever on Mars, but I am excited to find out what's the cause of this Mystery is in the future.
Hope I see you next week, have a nice day :)
Former episode: Heavy-Metal dinosaurs for kids!
https://steemit.com/uselessfacts/@braindeadjm/useless-facts-today-heavy-metal-dinosaurs-for-kids
