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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

Where has all Mars’s water gone? The answer might be well buried

A leading theory says that the red planet lost its ancient water to space, but research suggests that Martian minerals sucked up some of it.
Computer artwork looking over the rivers of the Kasei Valley as the Sun sets on Mars 3.5 billion years ago

Much of the water that filled Mars’s lakes and rivers (artist’s illustration) billions of years is now hidden in the planet’s rocks. Credit: Kees Veenenbos/Science Photo Library

Much of the water that once flowed across Mars is now locked up in minerals in the planet’s rocks.

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Nature 591, 504 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-00683-y

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