Astronomers speculate whether Mars had water then. There have been signs that there might be water, but astronomers and unmanned Mars missions have not turned up anything definitive so far. Astronomers theorize though that methane gas warmed early Mars.
Mars is said to be supposed to be cold to have liquid water. Its distance from the Sun doesn't allow it to have liquid water in the same way that the Earth does. There are signs though that Mars did have water in the past, and it has made scientists wonder about it.
A team of researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have proposed that Mars had early on bursts of methane gas periods. A greenhouse effect happened then when methane interacted with other elements such as carbon dioxide and hydrogen in order to make for a warmer climate. These warm periods were then enough to have water on Mars.
Robin Wordsworth is the first author of the study and an assistant professor of Environmental Science and Engineering. He has said that early Mars had been unique since it shared almost the same qualities like that on Earth. This could have a potential of finding life on it, according to the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences site.
Mars should have been cold then since the Sun four billion years ago was much fainter than it is now. Heat did reach Mars, but it wasn't as much then. Still, the Sun's heat was trapped in the atmosphere that Mars had back then, which resulted in periods of warm climate.
Scientists have speculated that carbon dioxide alone could not have produced the greenhouse effect on Mars. Lighter gases escape into space over time, and scientists speculate that lighter gases such as hydrogen and methane might have been more abundant early on in Mars, as Science Daily reports. Methane then most likely converted into hydrogen over time, much as the same process is happening in Titan, one of Saturn's moons.
The researchers hope that future missions on Mars would focus on finding out more on what happened to such gases like methane and hydrogen there. This would help establish how Mars was, and how it could have had water then. This would clarify that methane gas warmed early Mars. A study has also shown that asteroids could have other kinds of material.
