I'm no scientist but I thought rust was caused by oxygen and iron interacting and if there was no atmosphere there would be no oxygen and therefore no rust. So wouldn't there have to be some kind of atmosphere?
English
-
Correct. Rust is iron oxide, which is made up of iron atoms and oxygen atoms. It occurs when iron oxidizes with, surprise!, oxygen. So there has to be oxygen somewhere on Mars, and it is most likely coming from all the C02.