MARS: If water seeps, can it fall?

If it is pure water, the temperature range for liquid on Mars is about 33 F to 45 F. If the water is highly saline (and there are hundreds of possible salts) then you could have liquid down to about -30 F before it would freeze and up to about 70 F before it would boil.

Gregg Wilson

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If it is pure water, the temperature range for liquid on Mars is about 33 F to 45 F. If the water is highly saline (and there are hundreds of possible salts) then you could have liquid down to about -30 F before it would freeze and up to about 70 F before it would boil.

Gregg Wilson
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The lower temperature is about right but the higher one isn't. Apparently the boiling temperature doesn't go up much by putting salt in the water. Typically the boiling temperature on Mars ranges between 3 to 10 degrees Celsius at the highest air pressure there.

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>The lower temperature is about right but the higher one isn't. >Apparently the boiling temperature doesn't go up much by putting >salt in the water.

The reference is not to NaCl but, for instance, nitrates. (Nitrogen is "missing" in the Mars atmosphere.) The boiling point rise is small if your temperature range is around 212 F. But, it is much larger when temperature range is around 40 F to 70 F. The vapor pressure of water is not linear with temperature. I have an unfair advantage on this subject since I process design evaporators.

Gregg Wilson