Solar Wind Rips Up Martian Atmosphere

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."

But what about the "how" part . . . ?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Or do we just leave that as an extra credit exercise for the students?

Re:But what about the "how" part . . . ?

[meringuoid]

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.

Re:But what about the "how" part . . . ?

[confused one]

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.

Re:bad news for earth?

[elashish14]

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.

Re:bad news for earth?

[krnpimpsta]

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.

Putting a satellite around Mars.. hmmm.. maybe we should put two in orbit, and call them Phobos and Deimos. ;)

Re:bad news for earth?

[Ornedan]

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.

Re:bad news for earth?

[Anonymous Coward]

Geothermal energy doesn't reach nearly far enough into the planet to have any effect on the temperature of the core. Even the deepest hole on earth, which is in Russia, if I remember right, is something like 15 miles deep. While that sounds like a really deep hole, if the earth were and egg, 15 miles wouldn't even have broken through the shell yet. At that minuscule distance, no amount of extracted heat would have any effect on the core.

The core of the earth is likely never going to cool, even if we install geothermal energy in every house and building on the planet. Between friction heating (from tidal forces) and nuclear heating, the core has remained molten for 4.5 billion years or so, and will remain molten for at least a few billion more, which is far beyond an amount ever worth worrying about.