Tutolo Team Finds Mars Rocks Locked Away Several Tens of Millibars of CO2
Updated
Updated · spacedaily.com · Jun 2
Tutolo Team Finds Mars Rocks Locked Away Several Tens of Millibars of CO2
3 articles · Updated · spacedaily.com · Jun 2
Science results from 2025 show Curiosity found abundant siderite in Gale crater, indicating Mars stored a significant share of its missing carbon dioxide in rock rather than losing all of it to space.
Several tens of millibars of CO2 may be trapped across similar sulphate-rich deposits—enough to mark a real atmospheric reservoir, but far short of the roughly 1 bar often invoked to keep early Mars warm.
MAVEN data since 2014 still point to major atmospheric escape to space, with ion loss surging during solar storms and argon isotope measurements indicating much of Mars's air was stripped upward.
That leaves a mixed picture: some carbon was buried, some was later re-released, and scientists still dispute how warm early Mars was and how much the dying magnetic field actually controlled the loss.
With NASA's key atmospheric probe now lost, how will we solve the mystery of Mars's disappearing air and water?
What does the atmospheric collapse of Mars teach us about the chances for finding sustained life on distant exoplanets?
Mars lost its atmosphere to both space and rock, so how could a vast ancient ocean have ever existed on its surface?
Curiosity Rover’s 2024 Breakthrough: Hidden Siderite Explains Mars’s Vanished Atmosphere and Ancient Water
Overview
NASA's Curiosity rover made a landmark discovery on May 23, 2024, by using its CheMin instrument to analyze Martian rock samples. This led to the identification of siderite, a mineral that provides a crucial clue to one of Mars’s enduring mysteries—what happened to its once carbon-rich atmosphere. The finding sheds new light on Mars's ancient past, revealing that the planet once had conditions suitable for life and offering significant insights into how Mars transformed over billions of years. This breakthrough advances our understanding of Mars’s history and its potential for past habitability.