Life on Mars: Martian salt deposits ‘hold clue’ to ancient water source

The water would have had to continually collect salts, evaporate and transition into liquid water.

Each time this cycle repeated, as the water drained into the ground, it would have carried particles of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere with it.

Curiously, while too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can warm a world, too little will freeze it.

If too much carbon was locked into the Martian ground and the resulting atmosphere was too thin to keep Mars warm, the groundwater movement would halt as the planet froze.

And the analysis found the cycle would lock up a lot of carbon.

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