NASA Planetary scientists have found out where the ancient Martian atmosphere disappeared – RIA Novosti

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© Valerie Altounian / Science ; Data: X. Fang, MAVEN science team.

© MAVEN / Schneider et al. / Science 2015

© MAVEN / NASA / Jacosky et al., Science 2015

MOSCOW, November 5 – RIA Novosti . Observations using the probe MAVEN shown that the disappearance of the dense atmosphere of Mars in the past, could be to blame for solar flares, during which the rate of the “escape” of the Martian air space increases by orders of magnitude, say scientists in a series of articles published in the journal Science.

The probe MAVEN has been sent to Mars in November 2013 with the aim to study the structure and behavior of the atmosphere of the red planet and find the answer to one of its main mysteries – how and when most of its air bag, along with the waters of the oceans evaporated in space. In September 2014 MAVEN came to Mars and began to study it, having to make a series of deep “dives” into the atmosphere and opened an unusual auroras in its upper layers.

Today, the head of the mission, Bruce Yakoski (Bruce Jakosky) from University of Colorado at Boulder (USA) and a number of other planetary scientists presented the first scientific results MAVEN orbiting Mars. In these publications, the scientists confirmed those discoveries, which they had previously reported and talked about the new mysteries of the Martian atmosphere.

For example, observing the behavior of gases and magnetic fields in the atmosphere of Mars during a powerful coronal mass ejection on the sun, which occurred on March 8 this year, helped scientists find out exactly what these “solar storms” likely to cause the evaporation of most of the air and water of the red planet in space.

© University of Colorado

In particular, during this emission rate of outflow of ions in outer space has increased by more than 10 times, and upper atmosphere appeared substances, particularly atomic oxygen, which normally does not rise so high. In the past, these storms on the sun occur much more frequently, which may explain why the atmosphere of Mars is not protected by a magnetic field 110 times more tenuous than air shell of the Earth.

Another surprising thing was the discovery, that the atmosphere of Mars generally contains more oxygen than scientists expected to see. Its share in the air greatly varies from one point to another, that planetary scientists associated with different magnetization crust of Mars in different regions, and active “mixing” layers of air.

In addition, by themselves, these vibrations and associated foci of residual magnetization, saying that a weak magnetic field of Mars significantly stronger effect on its atmosphere than we used to think.

In the last two articles, scientists reported on two well-known and “promoted” in the press phenomena – an ultraviolet aurora in the northern hemisphere of Mars, fixed MAVEN, in December 2014, as well as the mysterious dust cloud consisting of particles of cosmic origin.

Reanalysis of the data confirmed that both these phenomena do exist, and showed that the glow is likely to have arisen due to the open MAVEN partial magnetization of crustal rocks of Mars. In this regard, NASA scientists agree with the results of the research of their colleagues from the ESA, who studied the same aurora according to probe Mars Express.