MEXICO: New findings from NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission (MAVEN) states that the ferocious bombardment of solar particles tears away the upper atmosphere on the Martian surface. The findings could help explain why the Martian atmosphere is leaking away into space at about half a pound a second.
Bruce M. Jakosky, a scientist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, said the reason for disappearance of Marian air would help in understanding that how Mars might have once been warm habitable planet. The principal investigator for the Maven mission said that the disappearance of Martian means the disappearance of liquid too. The Maven spacecraft has been on its mission since last September to gain insight into effects of solar winds on Martian atmosphere.
With the help of Maven instruments, scientists have been able to capture occasional ultraviolet auroras glowing in the Martian atmosphere. Nick Schneider, a planetary scientist at the University of Colorado, said “Mars, without a global magnetic field, should have auroras everywhere, certainly when solar conditions are right”. The Maven instruments also measured evenly distributed dusty grains in the Martian upper atmosphere which scientists concluded must have been interplanetary space and not the surface of Mars or its moon.
