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Solar Wind Rips Up Martian Atmosphere

Posted by Soulskill on from the that-atmosphere-had-it-coming dept.

IHateEverybody writes "Scientists have found evidence that the solar wind is ripping off chunks of the Martian atmosphere, which could possibly explain why Mars has such a thin atmosphere today. The chunks are being ripped up along 'magnetic umbrellas,' which are bubbles of magnetic fields which rise from the ground and extend above the Martian atmosphere. This is surprising because scientists previously thought that these magnetic umbrellas protected the Martian atmosphere. Now it looks like exactly the opposite might be true."

22 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. bad news for earth? by Bizzeh · · Score: 3, Interesting

    if this is possible on mars, what different properties does earth have to stop our atmosphear from one day just disapearing?

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    1. Re:bad news for earth? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      A magnetic field.

    2. Re:bad news for earth? by SockPuppet_9_5 · · Score: 5, Informative

      As I understand it, the Earth's magnetic field is healthy and extends up past the bulk of our atmosphere. The pushing from the solar wind deforms our atmosphere, but any ripples or other magnetic eddies are considerably smaller and that possible "ripping" of an Earth eddy would take place pretty far above the planet. I might guess that the Earth's magnetic field is consistent enough to prevent any large eddies from forming in the first place.

    3. Re:bad news for earth? by WindBourne · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I would say that you are correct. The article is saying that the SMALL LIMITED mag fields on Mars allows, even encourages, the ripping. Our field encompasses the entire planet and prevents. I have wondered if the moon acting on our core is what makes it spin. As such, it would seem that pushing a large asteroid (perhaps ceres) around Mars would re-start its core spinning. Of course, that tech is out of our reach for a while, and we do not have enough data to know if something like that would work.

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    4. Re:bad news for earth? by hvm2hvm · · Score: 4, Interesting

      There is a small loss of atmosphere anyway from other factors. Still, the atmosphere is slowly regenerated by the combination of gaseous emissions (like from volcanoes) and their conversion to life sustaining gases by low order life forms (plankton or something like that). Those emissions are slowing down because the Earth is cooling down but the loss of atmosphere (by natural causes) is way beyond our foreseeable future (maybe more than the lifespan of the Earth).

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    5. Re:bad news for earth? by TheLink · · Score: 4, Informative

      This says different: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_core_030306.html

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    6. Re:bad news for earth? by elashish14 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You're correct. Earth's protective magnetic field is generated by the molten iron core. When the planets were created, they all had the same molten core, but over time, they solidify. It takes longer in bigger planets because the core is bigger (duh). In Earth, the outer core remains molten while the inner core has solidified. Likewise, Venus, being a relatively big rocky planet also has an atmosphere that's protected by its magnetic field (hence the clouds on it surface). Mercury and Mars are smaller, their cores are likely less molten, so their magnetic fields are weaker and therefore they have no atmosphere. Eventually, Earth's core will also solidify so the atmosphere will get ripped away from here too.

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    7. Re:bad news for earth? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 3, Informative

      To be slightly more specific, the magnetic field of Earth has been oscillating all the time, even disappearing for some time on numerous occasions. And Earth's atmosphere is still here, so perhaps we do not have to worry too much about this (as for radiation effects on living beings including humans, however, that might be an entirely different question).

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    8. Re:bad news for earth? by fredrik70 · · Score: 3, Informative

      well, we know for a fact it occured quie a few times before, and our atmosphere is still here.

      Wikipedia describes it quite well:

      "Because the magnetic field has never been observed to reverse by humans with instrumentation, and the mechanism of field generation is not well understood, it is difficult to say what the characteristics of the magnetic field might be leading up to such a reversal. Some speculate that a greatly diminished magnetic field during a reversal period will expose the surface of the earth to a substantial and potentially damaging increase in cosmic radiation. However, Homo erectus and their ancestors certainly survived many previous reversals. There is no uncontested evidence that a magnetic field reversal has ever caused any biological extinctions. A possible explanation is that the solar wind may induce a sufficient magnetic field in the Earth's ionosphere to shield the surface from energetic particles even in the absence of the Earth's normal magnetic field [8].

      Although the inspection of past reversals does not indicate biological extinctions, present society with its reliance on electricity and electromagnetic effects (e.g. radio, satellite communications) may be vulnerable to technological disruptions in the event of a full field reversal."

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    9. Re:bad news for earth? by Ornedan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Ha. Ha.
      Phobos and Deimos have mass, relative to Mars, of jack and shit. Mars/Eris relative mass would at least be in the same (decimal) order of magnitude as Earth/Moon.

    10. Re:bad news for earth? by SlowMovingTarget · · Score: 4, Funny

      A new study concludes that the core of Mars is the consistency of the syrupy goop found inside chocolate-covered fruit candy.

      Apparently, Jello pudding does not actually make for a good planetary core.

    11. Re:bad news for earth? by Tablizer · · Score: 3, Funny

      There is a small loss of [Earth] atmosphere anyway from other factors. Still, the atmosphere is slowly regenerated by the combination of gaseous emissions...

      Save the Earth, eat a burrito!
           

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    12. Re:bad news for earth? by Tablizer · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Venus is roughly the same size as the Earth. However, it has no intrinsic magnetic field.

      Oddly, Venus' atmosphere is much thicker than ours. Although it has a molten core, it still has a very weak magnetic field. The leading theory is that Earth's magnetic field is somehow helped by plate tectonics, which generally doesn't happen on Venus. Plate tectonics may help molten fluids circulate to help run the magnetic dynamo. A lessor theory is that our moon plays a role. It may be a combo. It's still an open issue.
             

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    13. Re:bad news for earth? by Ambitwistor · · Score: 4, Interesting

      A factor contributing to its weak magnetic field is probably that Venus rotates very slowly (its day is 243 earth days).

    14. Re:bad news for earth? by DavidKlemke · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It might also be worth mentioning that Venus' rotation is also retrograde:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrograde_motion

      Now this might not be a factor in itself but whatever caused Venus to spin slowly in the opposite direction to everything else in the solar system probably had some effect on its magnetic field as well.

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  2. At least.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    At least it's not ripping up Uranus.

  3. at least... by Pharago · · Score: 3, Interesting

    at least we may know what to fix if we *ever* were to terraform that big red rock

  4. Re:But what about the "how" part . . . ? by meringuoid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm not certain it's actually necessary to fix it. The atmosphere would be stripped away on a timescale of millions of years. If you're capable of terraforming Mars to begin with, you're capable of replacing lost air faster than the Sun can strip it away. It's probably cheaper to do that than to rig up some enormous artificial magnetic shield.

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  5. Re:But what about the "how" part . . . ? by confused+one · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Well, rigging up some enourmouse artificial magnetic shield has another side benefit: It protects you from the charged particles in the solar wind. Humans don't react well to massive doses of radiation in the form of energetic alpha, beta, and protons.

  6. Re:But what about the "how" part . . . ? by MadnessASAP · · Score: 4, Funny

    I dunno, the 3rd and 4th arm are great and come in handy all the time, but on the downside my 2nd head is WAYYY to talkative.

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  7. Re:Ob. Spaceballs reference by IHateEverybody · · Score: 3, Funny

    We have a large shield around our planet, which has a special, secret password. No one can ever strip aweay our atmosphere, no matter how much they suck or blow.

    Is the combination 12345?

    Hey! I have the same combination on my luggage.

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  8. Re:perhaps bad news for us... by IHateEverybody · · Score: 3, Informative

    Well might not the end result of this be that Mars was once exactly like us?

    When you look at how long mankind has to evacuate the planet it seems this could shorten that time quite a bit. The core of the earth will cool long before the sun goes red dwarf.

    Maybe we should be looking into terraforming Venus.

    Most scientists think that Mars was once a lot more like Earth in that it had flowing, a thicker atmosphere, and possibly life.

    The sun won't go "red dwarf," it will turn into a red giant and will almost certainly swallow up Venus before it runs out of fuel and turns into a white dwarf. Long before any of that happens, the sun will have gotten hot enough to boil away Earth's oceans. The most common figures that I've seen is something like a 500 million to a billion years before the sun boils the oceans and makes Earth uninhabitable and five billion years before it turns into a red giant and swallows up Mercury and Venus. So we do have some time before we need to move.

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