A new study that claims Mars is too small to hold oceans could kill off any ideas of terraforming Mars. NASA, SpaceX, and many others have been speaking of terraforming Mars for years. The plan requires increasing Mars’ atmospheric pressure by releasing water and carbon dioxide. Scientists agree that Mars, in its early history, was rich in water and compare it to Earth, but the debate on how the Red Planet dried off is still ongoing.

Elon Musk has been pushing his plan “Nuke Mars”, which proposes using nuclear explosions to release carbon dioxide trapped in the ground and poles. Musk’s vision of an Earth-like Mars has been criticized by different experts, now this new study questions whether it can be done. Scientists have long argued against the idea of being able to heat up Mars to the point where the planet's ice caps would melt, but now it seems that it might not matter either way.

Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis say that the problem with terraforming Mars is its size. The new study claims that there is a “threshold on the size requirements of rocky planets to retain enough water”. Researchers explained that the size and mass of a planet determine its gravity and its atmosphere. A “low gravity” planet like Mars loses its volatile elements like water to space. Potassium and water behave in similar ways when it comes to escaping a planet. Researchers measured the ratio of two isotopes of potassium — potassium 39, and potassium 41 — in 20 confirmed Martian meteorites. The martian meteorites spanned from 200 million years to 4 billion years old, giving the team an idea of how Mars lost elements during its history.


In low gravity environments, such as Mars, potassium 39 is more easily lost to space, leaving behind a higher ratio of the heavier isotope, potassium 41. The team found that even the oldest meteorites showed signs of loss of volatile elements, proving that the Red planet has had a problem retaining water for a long time. "Mars' fate was decided from the beginning," Kun Wang, senior author of the new study said. Comparing their findings with the loss of volatile elements in Earth, the Moon, and the small asteroid 4-Vesta, they discovered a defined correlation between the size of a planet and the loss of volatile elements.

Scientists say that this new study is a game-changer for the so-called Goldilock zone and the search for habitable planets. NASA explains that the Goldilock zone, critical in deep space exploration, is the area around a star where it's not too hot and not too cold for liquid water to exist on the surface of orbiting planets, usually determined by distance. Researchers of the new study say the size of the planet is a critical factor and needs to be added to the equation. "These results will guide astronomers in their search for habitable exoplanets in other solar systems," Klaus Mezger of the University of Bern, Switzerland, co-author of the study said.

The study may sound like bad news for those who imagine oceans in Mars when they look at the images of the Perseverance rover showing Martian landscapes marked by dry river valleys, but scientists say it is good news for those searching for life beyond. Wang said that determining the mass of a planet is easy and this will make the search for new candidates for life easier. Time will tell if the study will stand the tests of space and if Mars will ever have liquid water again.