Martian Atmosphere Loss Explained by NASA

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Scientists have long suspected the solar wind of stripping the Martian atmosphere into space, a process that may have turned Mars from a blue world early in its history into the red planet that we see today. In 2014, NASA's MAVEN orbiter arrived at Mars and began studying its upper atmosphere. Now, MAVEN has returned significant measurements of solar wind erosion at Mars, observing ions in the upper atmosphere as they pick up energy from the electric field of the solar wind and escape to space. Learn more at: http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-mission-reveals-speed-of-solar-wind-stripping-martian-atmosphere Follow NASA's Mars Exploration Program on social media #JourneyToMars This video is public domain and can be downloaded at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?4370 Animations of the Mars fleet are available for download at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?4414 NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio created this video from the following data: MAVEN oxygen ion results: http://ppi.pds.nasa.gov/search/?t=Mars&sc=MAVEN&facet=SPACECRAFT_NAME&depth=1 MAVEN simulated ion escape – Monte Carlo Pickup Ion Transport (MCPIT) model: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2007JA012736/full Mars surface texture: http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/ Mars topography: http://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/missions/mgs/mola.html Star field: http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/Cat?V/50 http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/myqcat3?I/259/ http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/Cat?I/315

Published 2016-04-13 · Watch on YouTube ↗
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