Sublimation rate of ice under simulated Mars conditions and the effect of layers of mock regolith JSC Mars-1
We have studied the sublimation of ice buried beneath ≤200 mm of JSC Mars‐1 model regolith under simulated Mars conditions. As expected, even thin layers of regolith cause large decreases in sublimation rate, up to one order of magnitude at 50 mm. When the depth of the regolith was 50 to 200 mm we d...
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Published in | Geophysical research letters Vol. 34; no. 2; pp. L02203 - n/a |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Washington, DC
American Geophysical Union
01.01.2007
Blackwell Publishing Ltd |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | We have studied the sublimation of ice buried beneath ≤200 mm of JSC Mars‐1 model regolith under simulated Mars conditions. As expected, even thin layers of regolith cause large decreases in sublimation rate, up to one order of magnitude at 50 mm. When the depth of the regolith was 50 to 200 mm we detected water desorbing from the overlying layers for which we were able to determine a desorption coefficient of 1.45 ± 0.5 × 10−3 h−1. After allowing for the effect of desorption, we found that the diffusion coefficient for water vapor through our regolith is 1.74 ± 0.70 × 10−4 m2 s−1, in excellent agreement with theoretical values. We thus find that a 1‐m thick layer of ice buried below a meter of regolith resembling JSC Mars‐1 on Mars at 235 K would last ∼800 years. |
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Bibliography: | istex:24F5D038988CD0B81547FCE79E08A1AAA4A228D8 ArticleID:2006GL028401 ark:/67375/WNG-2W3SKD3K-C ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 0094-8276 1944-8007 |
DOI: | 10.1029/2006GL028401 |