Question about water on Mars finding

[flintstone]

Finding ice (water) on Mars has been all over the news the last few days. If water is H2O, meaning that oxygen is a component; where is the oxygen coming from in that environment? Especially without plant life to sustain it?

 

[oscar1]

Oxygen is an element, and exists in the universe. Plants and other, do not 'create' oxygen, but 'release' it, by breaking down the molecule the oxygen was tied to. And oxygen can be found tied to many other elements; take 'rust' for instance, which is oxidised iron. But plants actually break down CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) and release the oxygen from that, not from H2O, which they only drink and evaporate out intact.

 

[flintstone]

Thanks, I refer to plant life, knowing that they breath CO2 and regenerate the oxygen. I guess it doesn't make sense, to me, that a small amount of one element of atmousphere is present without atmousphere overall! Your point about oxydation is a good one I hadn't thought about.

 

[3488]

Atomic Oxygen is the third most abundant element after Hydrogen & Helium. Atomic oxygen is formed inside large stars.<br /><br />The Oygen we breathe is a molecule made of two Oxygen atoms combined O2 (probably pretty rare as on Earth it is produed through Photosynthesis in plants & algae, etc) & Ozone (as in the Ozone Layer in our Stratosphere & vehicle pollution) is triatomic (three atoms) Oxygen O3.<br /><br />It is because of atomic Oxygen combining with iron in the crust of Mars, that we have the red planet, it literally rusted.<br /><br />I hope that my above answers are correct.<br /><br />Andrew Brown. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080">"I suddenly noticed an anomaly to the left of Io, just off the rim of that world. It was extremely large with respect to the overall size of Io and crescent shaped. It seemed unbelievable that something that big had not been visible before".</font> <em><strong><font color="#000000">Linda Morabito </font></strong><font color="#800000">on discovering that the Jupiter moon Io was volcanically active. Friday 9th March 1979.</font></em></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://www.launchphotography.com/</font><br /><br /><font size="1" color="#000080">http://anthmartian.googlepages.com/thisislandearth</font></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://web.me.com/meridianijournal</font></p> </div>