Slashdot Mirror
MAVEN Spies Mars' Atmosphere Leaching Out Into Space
astroengine writes: Early results from NASA's recently arrived MAVEN Mars spacecraft show an extensive, tenuous cloud of hydrogen surrounding the red planet, the result of water breaking down in the atmosphere, scientists said Tuesday. MAVEN, an acronym for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, arrived on Sept. 21 to help answer questions about what caused a planet that was once warm and wet to turn into the cold, dry desert that appears today. "It's measurements like these that will allow us to estimate the escape rate of hydrogen from the Martian atmosphere to space today. It's an important measurement to make because the hydrogen ... comes from water lower down in the atmosphere," MAVEN scientist Mike Chaffin, with the University of Colorado, Boulder, told reporters on a conference call.
So my first guess here, as hydrogen is abundant in the martian atmosphere and it's nickname is 'the red planet', is that the abundance of iron in the planet's crust caused the consumption of water so that the greenhouse process was stopped?
Since Helium leaks I assume hydrogen does as well.
But apparently that's OK because the sun peppers us with this stuff anyway.
We've also got a giant magnetic field thats keeping a lot of stuff in (I dunno how it works. Magnets!) and apparently Mars has lost its magenatism.
Its got something to do with our molten core.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
True our spinning molten core creates our "magnetic shield" but that only applies to charged particles.
I don't think everything the Sun throws at us is ionized.
Do other planets, such as mercury, pluto and neptune, leach atmosphere or is mars the only planet in our solar system that does this?
but the sun. One day it will be large enough to consume earth, mars, and other planets. For that day to come a bit later I propose to cast mars into the sun as a sacrifice for our radiant goddess.
I hear this a lot "molten core" "spinning" "causing magnetic field". But where's the proof? I'm not trying to be argumentative (or maybe I am to some small degree) but I would really like to know how this is "known". Because I'm under the impression that this is just a really good educated guess, that has yet to be proven, much like black holes.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
i did see a documentary once where a ball of molten iron about 10' in diameter was spun and they were able to create a magnetic field.
So, in the long term the tendency is Mars losing their atmosphere and become a rock without air. Bad news for terraforming plans and long-term colonies :-(
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
It's easy. First, assuming you're in the northern hemisphere, go visit your nearest local active volcano. There's usually a set of steps carved just inside the rim. Go down and you'll notice the lava spitting out and spinning around in one direction as it cools past the curie point. For bonus points, bring a magnetometer with a retroencabulated calibration unit. Next, go to the southern hemisphere. Same deal, except the steps will be carved in the opposite direction, and you'll note that the lava is spitting out in the opposite direction. Again, use your magnetometer (the retroencabulated calibration unit is critical to proper operation at these levels of flux) for extra confirmation. Pretty simple.
I believe it was sodium, not iron.
Good images, but quite useless to view without a little information. How does the Spectrograph present it's images - or a better question - how long did it take for MAVEN to collect the data for these few preliminary images? The voids in two images make them appear to be incomplete.
I'm wondering what effect our past missions have made to build up the hydrogen cloud around Mars, and how well Mar's two moons sweep up the high atmosphere.
Maybe not but from what I understand, the part the magnetic shield protects us from, would blow our atmosphere away if the magnetic field was gone.
Charged particles are separated by our magnetic field and enter the athmosphere at the two poles. The charge either dissipate staticly - through surface phenomena - or as electron exchanging current. So, do you propose the static charge at the poles accumulate as to create static clouds and pools that migrate, or that enough charge gets accumulated to break down the dielectric constant of air, water and rock?
There should be readily available information to answer your question.
Earth does it. Helium gas is lost into space.
I hear this a lot "molten core" "spinning" "causing magnetic field". But where's the proof? I'm not trying to be argumentative (or maybe I am to some small degree) but I would really like to know how this is "known". Because I'm under the impression that this is just a really good educated guess, that has yet to be proven, much like black holes.
I thought the latest theory is that there is actually a uranium-powered nuclear furnace in Earth's core?
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
I get what you're saying, but I don't see how that is definitive proof that the center of the planet is spinning or what it's made of, or even that it's the cause or generator of the Earth's magnetic field.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
I thought that the Earth's uranium is supposed to be concentrated mainly in the crust?
Ezekiel 23:20
I'd love to see how it compares to the expected values. Can you stick it into a model based on the known equations, turn the crank, and tell what the temperature used to be on Mars thousands of years ago? Hrmm, would be a fun thesis topic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...
That an asteroid smashed into the planet disrupting its core. With the core disrupted, it no longer is the furnace that our planet is and being a molten metal furnace that spins, this creates our magnetic field that keeps the solar particles flowing by the planet and most of our atmosphere in.
Without its central magnetic field (Mars has many small ones) there is no effect large enough to prevent solar winds from stripping the atmosphere from the planet over time.
I think you meant that to go here: http://developers.slashdot.org/story/14/10/15/0213244/oracle-database-certifications-are-no-longer-permanent
Well, the sun and moon rise and set. This is because of the earth's rotation. If the earth is spinning, how could the core not be spinning?
Using that logic, the crust spinning could be creating the magnetic field. But the moon is spinning, so is Mars. Neither, to my knowledge, have a magnetic field.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
The reason for mars losing its atmosphere is already understood, it is disingenuous to continue to call it a "mystery"
The core of mars was not formed with enough thorium to warm the core with radioactive decay in the long term. Once the potassium-40 and Uranium petered out, the liquid circulating metal of the core cooled and solidified. The magnetic fields produced by the circulating metal deflected the solar wind and protected the atmosphere.
Thankfully earth has plenty of thorium in its core for many years to come. Keep those Van Allen belts buckled tightly around our blue orb. Thanks for reading!
Neither the Moon nor Mars have a molten core (anymore). They did at one point. Both bodies took some pretty serious impact damage from asteroids and essentially spilled their cores out on surface of the globe on the side opposite the impact. You can clearly see this on the moon, with the various mare directly opposite the deepest impact crater on the far side of the moon - Apollo Basin. This can also been seen on Mars where there are large fracture features, volcanoes and smooth lava plains covering the surface of the planet opposite the huge impact feature known as Hellas Platinia. Hit a planet hard enough, and boom, no more molten core.
well, that and the fact that the moon is constantly "Kneading" the earths crust back and forth, causing friction heat to build up in the crust/core.
I have always wondered if we started parking asteroids near enough to Diemos and let gravity do its thing, would a moon 1/6 the mass of of Mars restart the core, thus creating a magnetic field that holds in the atmosphere.
Whoosh. You fail life. You're clearly not competent to even discern between someone BSing you and real arguments. If you'd known what a retroencabulator was, you would realize I was BSing you. Second, you replied and didn't even search for it. So you're not competent to seek out information to correct your ignorance.
Want to fix it? First, Google retroencabulator. You've been had. That was all made up BS.
The closest subdefinition is "to draw out or remove as if by percolation".
Could the gas lost to space be "as if" liquid were passing through the gas? Maybe, if you stretch the definition. Replace "liquid" with "solar wind" and that's not very far off.
Other words would be a better fit.
One thing I can safely disagree with you about, though, is that this represents a new low for Slashdot.
I think you know how to use the internet to learn new things. But where's the proof. I'm not trying to be argumentative but I would really like to know. Because I'm under the impression that most people know how to do a simple search on the internet, this has yet to be proven, much like black holes (?)
you know, the question sounded genuine, don't know why you had to be such an arsehole.
"there is no such thing as stupid questions, only stupid answers."
thanks for giving us all a great demonstration of the latter
Who carves steps into the inside of an active volcano? All active volcanoes? Really? I mean I didn't specify one, I just said your nearest active volcano. I tried to make it as obvious as possible. That shouldn't have even passed the sniff test. I go for Funny and the guy takes me seriously.
Sometimes, people are idiots. Someone who wants everything handed to them on a platter and can't be bothered to think for themselves in the slightest isn't earning any sympathy points from me.