Scientists have finally figured out where the "missing" carbon of Mars went, as they suggest that carbon escaped from the atmosphere due to extremely strong ultraviolet rays from the sun. Scientists also estimate that Mars probably possessed a denser atmosphere some 3.8 million years ago.  

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This previously dense atmosphere that may have had a surface pressure similar to Earth's, has evolved through time into a tenuous one. According to Renyu Hu of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), this new study is showing a transition from a moderately dense atmosphere to a currently thin one, which is apparently possible.

To date, solar wind is stripping away much of what is left of the Martian atmosphere, removing tons of it everyday. Scientists believe that there are two possible mechanisms how excess carbon dioxide is removed. It's either this precious carbon dioxide became locked away as minerals in rocks called carbonates or it escaped and was lost ultimately in deep space. 

This process is known as "sputtering" where carbon dioxide in the atmosphere escapes to space, which is also linked to solar wind and upper atmosphere activities. New data from NASA's MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) mission indicated how 100 grams of particles are lost every second, occurring everyday on the atmosphere of Mars. Sputtering causes more carbon-12 to disappear as opposed to carbon-13 but this effect is rather small.

Apart from this, NASA's Curiosity rover also reveals measurements that the Martian atmosphere is rich in carbon-13 than carbon-12, which means that aside from sputtering, there could be a different process at work, causing this carbon escape.

Now, the team has identified this process that might add to this carbon-13 enrichment. This process involves how ultraviolet light strikes a carbon dioxide molecule in the upper atmosphere, that splits it into carbon monoxide and oxygen. The carbon monoxide is split again into carbon and oxygen by this ultraviolet light in the process.

During this process, carbon atoms acquire enough energy to escape from the atmosphere where these new findings show that carabon-12 is more likely to escape than carbon-13, originating from the three naturally occurring carbon isotopes known as 12, 13 and 14.

Long term effects of this carbon escape mechanism apparently leaves a significant role in the carbon isotopic ratio in the atmosphere, allowing researchers to calculate how dense the surface pressure of the original Martian atmosphere, which is only a tad less thicker than Earth's atmosphere today. 

This new study is published in the journal Nature Communications. 

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