Mars' Magnetic Tail

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    ID: 12046 Produced Video

    Stripping the Martian Atmosphere

    Nov. 10th, 2015
    (updated Aug. 25th, 2023)

    A NASA mission reveals how gases in Mars' upper atmosphere are stripped away by the sun's solar wind. || Mars today is a cold, barren desert, but scientists think it was once a warm and wet planet. The change may have been caused by the loss of an early atmosphere driven into space by the sun’s solar wind. Unlike Earth, Mars lacks a global magnetic field that deflects the stream of charged particles continuously blowing off the sun. Instead, the solar wind crashes into the planet’s upper atmosphere, stripping away electrically charged gas atoms, called ions. NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft, which entered orbit around Mars in September 2014, measures the speed and direction of escaping ions to observe the process of how Mars’ atmosphere is eroded by the solar wind. Measurements show the rate of ion loss increases during periods of extreme solar activity, suggesting a younger and more active sun billions of years ago likely played a significant role in transforming the Red Planet. Watch the video for a simulation showing the process of Mars’ atmospheric erosion. ||

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  • 
    ID: 11673 Produced Video

    MAVEN at Mars

    Oct. 14th, 2014
    (updated May 3rd, 2023)

    On September 21, 2014, NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, spacecraft completed its 10-month journey and entered orbit around the Red Planet. As the first mission devoted to observing the tenuous upper atmosphere of Mars, MAVEN will help scientists determine how much of the atmosphere has been lost throughout the planet’s history and which processes have driven that loss. The spacecraft has already conducted preliminary observations of important gases in the planet’s upper atmosphere and sent those images back to Earth. Watch the videos to learn more about the MAVEN mission. ||

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    ID: 4370 Visualization

    Solar Wind Strips the Martian Atmosphere

    Nov. 5th, 2015
    (updated Aug. 25th, 2023)

    Scientists have long suspected the solar wind of stripping the Martian upper atmosphere into space, turning Mars from a blue world to a red one. Now, NASA's MAVEN orbiter is observing this process in action, providing significant data on solar wind erosion at Mars.Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.Complete transcript available.This video is also available on our YouTube channel. || Today, Mars is a global desert with an atmosphere far too thin to support bodies of flowing water, but evidence shows that Mars was considerably wetter in the ancient past. Scientists think that climate change on Mars was caused by the loss of an early, thick atmosphere, and NASA’s MAVEN mission is investigating whether it was driven into space.One of the prime suspects is the solar wind, a stream of electrically charged particles continuously blowing outward from the Sun. Unlike Earth, Mars lacks a global magnetic field to deflect the incoming solar wind. Instead, charged particles from the Sun crash into the Mars upper atmosphere, and can accelerate Martian ions into space. Now, MAVEN has observed this process in action – by measuring the velocity of ions escaping from Mars.The movies on this page compare simulations of ion escape with MAVEN’s observations of oxygen ion flux. The results closely fit the expected pattern, with the most energetic ions (in red) accelerated in a plume above Mars, while the majority of escaping ions (green) are lost along the “tail” region in the wake of the solar wind. MAVEN’s observations confirm that the solar wind is a significant contributor to atmosphere loss on Mars, and they bring scientists closer to solving the mystery of the ancient Martian climate. Read the full press release about this finding.Watch the November 2015 MAVEN Science Update. ||

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