How Mars lost its atmosphere and the secrets of its watery past
In short: Mars is a dry, rocky, and bitter cold world, yet it may have once held water. NASA’s MAVEN mission aims to solve this mystery by studying the Martian upper atmosphere to understand how the planet's climate changed over billions of years.
To understand why Mars transitioned from a potentially habitable world to the inhospitable desert we see today, scientists are looking to the planet's upper atmosphere. The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission is the first spacecraft dedicated specifically to this region. By orbiting the planet in an elliptical path, MAVEN can pass through and sample the entire upper atmosphere during every single orbit. This specific scientific inquiry is vital for understanding the planet's long-term evolution. This approach ensures comprehensive data collection across the entire atmospheric layer.
The mission's primary goal is to investigate how the loss of the Martian atmosphere to space has shaped the history of water on the surface. By measuring these atmospheric changes, researchers hope to determine how the climate evolved over the Red Planet's history. Such studies are crucial for determining if Mars was, currently is, or might become a habitable environment.
MAVEN is the second mission in NASA's Mars Scout Program. It was scheduled to launch on November 18 aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 401 rocket. The mission involves a diverse team of experts, including Michael Meyer from NASA Headquarters and Bruce Jakosky from the University of Colorado at Boulder, working to decode the complex mechanisms that stripped the planet of its protective gases. This effort is supported by specialists like Janet Luhmann from the University of California at Berkeley. Additionally, Nick Schneider and Paul Mahaffy contribute their expertise as instrument leads for the mission.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: The Science Behind NASA's Next Mars Mission
- Also: NASA Science — Mars Exploration Future Plan - NASA Science
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