Artist's rendering of a solar storm hitting Mars and stripping ions from the planet's upper atmosphere .
Credit: NASA
NASA announces new findings relating to the atmosphere of Mars which could give insight into the planet's past and the possibility of life on the red planet
The sun destroyed the atmosphere of Mars robbing the planet of what might once have been an environment replete with water and the conditions for life, Nasa said today.
Announcing the findings of its Maven probe which has been orbiting the Red Planet for the last year, the space agency said the once-thick atmosphere was blown away by the solar wind between 4.2 billion and 3.7 billion years ago.
Until that time water appeared to have been "abundant and active" on Mars, Nasa said.
Only one per cent of the Martian atmosphere remains and Maven found it is being stripped away at the rate of one quarter pound of gas per second.
The solar wind normally travels at one million miles per hour and Earth has a strong global magnetic field which shields it.
However, Mars' magnetic field shut down billions of years ago leaving it exposed at an earlier period in the life of the sun when solar storms were more extreme...
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk. — Garrison Keillor
I think Olympus Mons blew much of the atmosphere into space through convection .. that volcano is larger than the area of all the Hawaiian islands, and reaches far, far above the Martian surface. http://www.bing.com/search?q=olympus+mo ... ORM=IE10TR The eruptions probably ended the magnetic field when it threw the molten rock generating the field into space, allowing more of the atmosphere to be stripped away by solar winds. http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=oly ... ORM=IARRTH. Instead of 'Olympus Mountain' think 'Olympus Fountain.'
alohascope wrote:
I think Olympus Mons blew much of the atmosphere into space through convection .. that volcano is larger than the area of all the Hawaiian islands, and reaches far, far above the Martian surface.
One would think that Olympus Mons was the primary source of Mars's CO2 atmosphere.
When Mars had oceans on the surface (a planet wide ocean according to one theory https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn ... n-on-mars/) the planet probably had an atmosphere with a good portion of oxygen. That atmosphere is the one I think was blown off by Olympus. Possibly mineral examination on Phobos and Deimos would carry higher concentrations of oxygen than would otherwise be expected.
