How Mars is losing its atmosphere on This Week @NASA – November 6, 2015

How Mars is los­ing its atmos­phere on This Week @NASA – Novem­ber 6, 2015



NASA,MAVEN,astronauts,SLS flight engine



New find­ings by NASA’s Mars Atmos­phere and Volatile Evo­lu­tion (MAVEN) mis­sion indi­cate that solar wind is cur­rent­ly strip­ping away the equiv­a­lent of about 1/4 pound of gas every sec­ond from the Mar­t­ian atmos­phere. MAVEN tracked a series of dra­mat­ic solar storms pass­ing through the Mar­t­ian atmos­phere in March and found the loss was accel­er­at­ed. This could sug­gest that vio­lent solar activ­i­ty in the dis­tant past may have played a key role in the tran­si­tion of the Mar­t­ian cli­mate from an ear­ly, warm and wet envi­ron­ment that might have sup­port­ed sur­face life, to the cold, arid plan­et Mars is today. Also, 15 Years on space sta­tion, and count­ing!, Space­walk for space sta­tion main­te­nance, NASA seek­ing future astro­nauts, Com­mer­cial Crew access tow­er progress and First SLS flight engine placed for testing!



#Mars #los­ing #atmos­phere #Week #NASA #Novem­ber