Mars: A Desert Planet – Was It Ever Habitable?
- Although close to Earth,Mars remains a planet with many unsolved mysteries.
- This condition has persisted for the past 100 million years.
- planet scientist Edwin Kite from The university of Chicago attempted to explain this through a study published on July 2, 2025, in the journal Nature.
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Why Mars Became a Desert planet
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Although close to Earth,Mars remains a planet with many unsolved mysteries. Mars is known to have canyons formed by rivers, indicating a past where the climate was warm enough to support liquid water.
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However, Mars has now become a barren desert. This condition has persisted for the past 100 million years. But why?
planet scientist Edwin Kite from The university of Chicago attempted to explain this through a study published on July 2, 2025, in the journal Nature. The study was based on data from NASA’s curiosity Mars mission, announced in april 2025.
The data revealed a significant finding: rocks rich in carbonate minerals. These rocks provide crucial evidence regarding the loss of Mars’ atmosphere.
“Over the years, we’ve had a big question that hasn’t been answered: why has Earth managed to maintain it’s atmosphere, while Mars lost it?” Kite said, as quoted by Uchicago.
Mars: From habitable to Desert
Fundamentally, Mars has a composition similar to Earth. It’s a rocky planet, rich in carbon and water, and close enough to the sun to potentially be warm.
However, Mars possesses a unique characteristic. Kite explains that the red planet regulates itself as a desert planet.
“Now Mars is just a frozen desert, while Earth is teeming with life,” he stated.
Through the data he analyzed, Kite identified numerous valleys formed by rivers and the remnants of ancient lakebeds on the Martian surface. This indicates that the planet either had, or was capable of having, a sufficiently warm climate to support liquid water.
“Fortunately, Mars kept traces of its environmental disaster on its surface rocks,” Kite said.
With increasingly sophisticated technology,Kite believes we are now in a “golden age of Mars science.” Various technologies allow for in-depth exploration of the planet.
To make Mars habitable, Kite suggests a mechanism is needed to maintain temperature stability over time. Earth possesses such a mechanism – a balanced system for moving carbon between the atmosphere and rocks.
Carbon…