MAVEN Spies Mars' Atmosphere Leaching Out Into Space

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday October 14, 2014 @06:15PM from the you-might-want-to-hold-onto-that dept.

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.

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So much for colonization plans... by TheDarkMaster · 2014-10-14 23:31 · Score: 2

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 :-(

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Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
1. Re:So much for colonization plans... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2014-10-15 01:00 · Score: 2
  
  If you terraformed Mars today, the atmosphere would still stay there for a very long time (think more than thousands of years, or rather millions, I guess).
  
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  Ezekiel 23:20