{"id":19577,"date":"2015-11-05T23:25:54","date_gmt":"2015-11-05T15:25:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasas-maven-orbiter-reveals-how-solar-storms-blasted-away-mars-atmosphere\/"},"modified":"2015-11-05T23:25:54","modified_gmt":"2015-11-05T15:25:54","slug":"nasas-maven-orbiter-reveals-how-solar-storms-blasted-away-mars-atmosphere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasas-maven-orbiter-reveals-how-solar-storms-blasted-away-mars-atmosphere\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA\u2019s MAVEN orbiter reveals how solar storms blasted away Mars\u2019 atmosphere"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"MAVEN
Atmospheric readings from NASA\u2019s MAVEN orbiter, shown in this artist\u2019s conception, are helping scientists figure out how Mars\u2019 climate changed from warm and wet to cold and dry. (Credit: LASP \/ NASA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Scientists studying Mars\u2019 atmosphere say solar storms probably played a big role in transforming the Red Planet from the warm, hospitable place it was billions of years ago to the cold world it is today.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s just one of the many findings about Mars found in four dozen research papers published today by Science and Geophysical Research Letters. The source of the scientific cornucopia is NASA\u2019s $671 million MAVEN mission, which put a bus-sized spacecraft into Martian orbit last year.<\/p>\n

The mission\u2019s name is an acronym that stands for M<\/strong>ars A<\/strong>tmosphere and V<\/strong>olatile E<\/strong>volutioN<\/strong>. Its aim is to measure the current dynamics of the Martian atmosphere \u2013 and then factor those measurements into models to figure out how Mars lost much of its air billions of years ago.<\/p>\n

\"Science
This week\u2019s cover of the journal Science shows the paths of ions escaping Mars\u2019 atmosphere due to solar wind radiation. (Data visualization by Valerie Altounian \/ Science; Data: X. Fang and the MAVEN science team)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Based on earlier observations, scientists surmised that because Mars\u2019 magnetic field isn\u2019t as strong as Earth\u2019s, electrically charged particles from the sun are able to strip away molecules and ions from the top of the Martian atmosphere as they streamed by.<\/p>\n

MAVEN\u2019s scientists had a golden opportunity to gather data for analysis on March 8, when an unusually strong solar storm swept past Mars. In one of the Science papers, a research team led by the University of Colorado\u2019s Bruce Jakosky, the MAVEN mission\u2019s principal investigator, reports that the magnetic field accelerated ions to roughly 10 times their usual velocity. Oxygen ions were flung higher up into the atmosphere than expected.<\/p>\n

When the scientists plugged the numbers into their computer models, they determined that under such conditions, atmospheric ions would be lost at around 10 or 20 times the normal rate.<\/p>\n

The researchers note that solar storms are thought to have occurred frequently during the early days of the solar system. Also, Mars\u2019 magnetic field is thought to have faded away very early in its history as its liquid metal core cooled down.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs these early periods may have been the dominant times at which the Martian atmosphere experienced loss, the inferred climate change on Mars may have been driven to a large extent by these solar storms,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n

One of the study\u2019s co-authors, Paul Mahaffy of NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center, stressed that there aren\u2019t yet enough measurements to produce a detailed scenario for atmospheric loss on Mars. \u201cI think it\u2019s still early in developing that story. \u2026 Long-term, we\u2019ll probably need to do more mapping to understand this better,\u201d he told GeekWire.<\/p>\n

But the findings are generally consistent with what other Mars missions have found. For example, when atmospheric readings from NASA\u2019s Curiosity rover were compared with samples taken from Mars meteorites, scientists concluded that most of the Red Planet\u2019s atmosphere was stripped away more than 3 billion years ago. Mahaffy was the lead author of one of the resulting research papers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe big story is really the nuts and bolts of the physics and chemistry of the upper atmosphere of Mars,\u201d Mahaffy said, referring to the research papers published today. \u201cIt\u2019s a new window to understanding what\u2019s going on up there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"pluto\"
\nScience journalist Alan Boyle<\/strong> is the author of “The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made A Big Difference.”<\/p>\n

Another study reports an unexpected level of variability in atmospheric density. \u201cAt certain latitudes and times of day, there are these high-amplitude density waves, especially toward sunrise and sunset,\u201d Mahaffy said. That suggests Mars\u2019 atmospheric interactions are more complex than previously thought \u2013 with gravity wave interactions, wind patterns and the planet\u2019s weak magnetic field all playing a role.<\/p>\n

Still other papers document observations of Mars\u2019 faint northern aurora, which dips to the surprisingly low level of 37 miles (60 kilometers); the distribution of dust in the atmosphere, which is found at the surprisingly high level of 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) and may come from interplanetary sources; and plumes of escaping ions that account for a significant proportion of Mars\u2019 atmospheric loss.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of these measurements form the basis of our ability to model [atmospheric] escape,\u201d Mahaffy said.<\/p>\n

At the current rate of loss, Mars should retain an atmosphere for at least the next couple of billion years, Jakosky said, \u201cbut I can\u2019t tell you exactly what it\u2019s going to be like.\u201d<\/p>\n

MAVEN is still collecting scientific data for its primary mission, and it\u2019s expected to continue operating for an extended mission that includes serving as a backup relay satellite for other Mars probes. Meanwhile, India\u2019s Mars Orbiter Mission, also known as MOM or Mangalyaan, is studying the Red Planet\u2019s atmosphere as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Atmospheric readings from NASA\u2019s MAVEN orbiter, shown in this artist\u2019s conception, are helping scientists figure out how Mars\u2019 climate changed from warm and wet to cold and dry. (Credit: LASP \/ NASA) Scientists studying Mars\u2019 atmosphere say solar storms probably played a big role in transforming the Red Planet from the warm, hospitable place it was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19577"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19577\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}