The results of Maven allowed researchers to determine the rate at which the atmosphere of Mars is currently losing its gas and reveal the erosion of the atmosphere of Mars significantly increases during solar storms.
Mars loses its gas because of solar storms
“Mars seems to have had a thick atmosphere warm enough to have liquid water, a key element of life as we know it today “ said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of NASA in Washington. “Understanding what happened to the Martian atmosphere will inform us about the dynamics and evolution of the entire global atmosphere. Learning what can cause changes to the environment of a planet “ is important and a key issue of the journey of NASA on Mars, he added.
Measures Maven indicate that solar winds diverge bands gas to about 100 grams per second. “Like stealing a coin into a cash register, this loss becomes important over time” said Bruce Jakosky, a researcher for Maven. “We saw that the atmospheric erosion increases dramatically during solar storms We therefore believe that the loss rate was much higher there billions of years, when the sun was young and active. “
Explanation video:
The continuous leakage
The Maven mission found that more gas loss had accelerated after . a series of solar storms in March 2015
The new measures Maven show that the loss of atmosphere continues in three different regions of Mars: the bottom of the “tail” where the solar wind flows (75%), above the poles of Mars in a “solar plume” (25%) and from an extended cloud of gas surrounding Mars ( residues).
The solar wind is a stream of particles, mostly protons and electrons resulting from the sun’s atmosphere at a speed about a million miles per hour.
The goal of MAVEN mission of NASA, launched to Mars in November 2013, is to determine how and how much the atmosphere and the water on the planet have been lost in space. This is the first mission to establish a link between the sun and Mars atmospheric changes.
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