The atmosphere of Mars could have disappeared billions of years ago as a result of the solar wind, which hits the planet with great strength, a situation that would explain how it lost the water that once covered its northern hemisphere, NASA reported Thursday.
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It is a well known fact that water is a key ingredient and medium for life in a planet, according to John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator for the NASA Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft began orbiting Mars for the objective of examining its atmosphere in unprecedented detail.
NASA scientists have released new information from their latest Mars probe, showing more evidence of how and why the environment on the red planet has changed so dramatically.
The MAVEN data indicated that the solar wind robs Mars of about 100 grams of atmosphere every second.
That loss of atmosphere shows significant increases during solar storms, suggesting the loss was much more rapid and pronounced billions of years in the past, when our sun was younger and much more active, he says. The findings indicate that the erosion of the Martian atmosphere increases significantly during solar storms. On our planet, auroras form when charged particles from the solar winds enter Earth’s magnetic field and travel to the poles where the particles collide with atoms of gas in the atmosphere.
The MAVEN mission is dedicated to investigating the planet’s atmosphere to help “understand dramatic climate change on the red planet”. Apparently, the culprit is the solar wind.
Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN’s principal investigator, was able to make the determination by monitoring Mars’ magnetic field.
NASA revealing several key scientific findings by its MAVEN spacecraft regarding the past Martian atmosphere on Thursday. This magnetic field protects Earth and it’s atmosphere from the majority of the damaging particles being emitted from the Sun, and it’s a lack of such protection that has been the undoing of our planetary neighbor.
The first big-picture look from MAVEN stops short of assessing what happened to Mars’ water.
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That led the researchers to conclude Mars’ atmospheric decline may have been driven in large part by major solar events such as this, early in the planet’s history. It has been operating at Mars for just over a year and will complete its primary science mission on November 16.
