Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to More or less Argon

re: More or less Argon
gbaikie — (archived)

Also:
"Mars has a very thin atmosphere composed mostly of the tiny amount of remaining carbon dioxide (95.3%) plus nitrogen (2.7%), argon (1.6%) and traces of oxygen (0.15%) and water (0.03%). The average pressure on the surface of Mars is only about 7 millibars (less than 1% of Earth's)"
http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/mars.html

Earth has around 1% argon in it's atmosphere, but per cubic feet of air Earth has far more argon in it than compared a cubic foot of Mars air.
In other words if you were to freeze out half of Earth's Atmosphere there would be twice as much argon as a percentage or if you were added twice as much CO2 to Mars' atmosphere [say by somehow increasing it's global temperature to say, -30 C] there would be half as much argon as a percentage.
Or if you took a bucket water or chuck of Lava and froze it in Earth and Martian atmosphere, there would be more argon in the Earth ice or rock than compared to Mars ice or rock.

In other words there isn't a lot of argon in Mars' atmosphere- instead there is shortage of atmosphere.
And Mars' low level of argon is probably due to it being a frozen planet with a high percentage of argon stuck in it's freezing cold rocks.

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