Guests: John Batchelor, Shane Stone, Dr. David Livingston.  Topics:  What happened to the water on Mars?

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John Batchelor and I welcomed Shane Stone, Univ of Arizona researcher, to discuss his research using the MAVEN Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer to determine what happened to the water on Mars over Martian history.  As Shane explained on the show, they believe the was swept up into the upper atmosphere in dust storms, the water then separated into hydrogen and oxygen and was discharged in to space.  Our guest explained this process, estimated how much water was disposed of this way and more. 

Here are some articles that discuss the findings of Shane and his team:

1.  https://www.newscientist.com/article/2259487-dust-storms-on-mars-are-tossing-water-from-its-atmosphere-into-space/#:~:text=Dust%20storms%20may%20have%20played,down%20and%20escapes%20into%20space.&text=The%20atmospheric%20warming%20caused%20by,higher%20in%20the%20Martian%20air.

2. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2020/heat-and-dust-help-launch-martian-water-into-space-scientists-find

3.  https://www.inverse.com/science/heres-what-happened-to-martian-water

4.  https://news.arizona.edu/story/escape-mars-how-water-fled-red-planet

In the second part of this Hotel Mars program, John gave Shane an unlimited budget to explore Mars with humans.  He wanted to know the first things Shane would do when they got to Mars.  You might find some surprises in Shane's response.

Please post your comments/questions for our guest on our blog for this show.  You can reach Shane Stone through me or his University of Arizona Planetary Science page.