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.
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?
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.