MAVEN

NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) is the first mission devoted to understanding the Martian upper atmosphere. Today Mars is cold and dry, but ancient Mars was warm, wet, and possibly hospitable to life. Scientists think that the loss of Mars' early atmosphere caused the planet to dry up, and MAVEN is testing this hypothesis by observing present-day interactions of the Martian atmosphere with the solar wind. Learn more about MAVEN from NASA and the University of Colorado Boulder.