That Are Fundamental to Atmospheric Loss
NASA | GSFC | MAVEN | 2020 May 26
Five years after NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft entered into orbit around Mars, data from the mission has led to the creation of a map of electric current systems in the Martian atmosphere.First Map of Mars Electric CurrentsClick to play embedded YouTube video.
Video Credit: NASA/GSFC/MAVEN/CU Boulder/SVS
Music: “A Lucid Dream” and “Shimmer Oscillations”
by James Joshua Otto, via Universal Production Music
“These currents play a fundamental role in the atmospheric loss that transformed Mars from a world that could have supported life into an inhospitable desert,” said experimental physicist Robin Ramstad of the University of Colorado, Boulder. “We are now currently working on using the currents to determine the precise amount of energy that is drawn from the solar wind and powers atmospheric escape.” ...
Earth has such current systems, too: we can even see them in the form of colorful displays of light in the night sky near the polar regions known as the aurora, or northern and southern lights. Earth's aurora are strongly linked to currents, generated by the interaction of the Earth’s magnetic field with the solar wind, that flow along vertical magnetic field lines into the atmosphere, concentrating in the polar regions. Studying the flow of electricity thousands of miles above our heads, though, only tells part of the story about the situation on Mars. The difference lies in the planets’ respective magnetic fields, because while Earth’s magnetism comes from within, Mars’ does not. ...
The Global Current Systems of the Martian Induced Magnetosphere ~ Robin Ramstad et al
- Nature Astronomy (online 25 May 2020) DOI: 10.1038/s41550-020-1099-y