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.

Re:

[gnupun]

Do other planets, such as mercury, pluto and neptune, leach atmosphere or is mars the only planet in our solar system that does this?

Re: Leeching

[Anonymous Coward]

Earth does it. Helium gas is lost into space.

Re:

[CauseBy]

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.

Re:

[goarilla]

Does this mean that some of Earth's atmosphere might be leaking out into space? If that is the case, I hope all the oxygen disappears so all the white people will die.

Since Helium leaks I assume hydrogen does as well.
But apparently that's OK because the sun peppers us with this stuff anyway.

Re:

[sg_oneill]

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.

Re:

[goarilla]

Its got something to do with our molten core.

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.

Re:

[BringsApples]

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.

Re:

[weilawei]

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 spittin

Re:

[BringsApples]

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.

Re:

[Sperbels]

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?

Re:

[BringsApples]

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.

Re:

[weilawei]

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.

Re:

[weilawei]

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.

Re: Earth's Core is a spinning electromagnet

[KJSwartz]

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.

Re:

[Curunir_wolf]

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?

Re:

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I thought that the Earth's uranium is supposed to be concentrated mainly in the crust?

Re:

[drewsup]

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.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

So much for colonization plans...

[TheDarkMaster]

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 :-(

Re:

[TheDarkMaster]

The norm is to ignore ACs, but ... I wonder why humanity allows a piece of shit with no imagination, no dreams, no ambitions, hateful, stupid, coward and ignorant as you living among us. Never say "never", AC... I am dismayed by the news that Mars may be airless in the distant future, but I'm far from giving up as you.

Re:

[TheDarkMaster]

To begin this brief conversation, If you are so sure of what you say you would not be posting as AC. That said, there is a huge difference between criticism and stupid insults. Criticism is healthy, clueless insults are not.

Re:

[itzly]

Except that on Slashdot it's easy to get downmodded as 'troll' for expressing healthy criticism that someone doesn't like to hear.

Re:

[K. S. Kyosuke]

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).

Re:

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Have you read Bob Shaw? ;-)

Re:

[itzly]

Thousands of years isn't very long, even on the scale of human civilization.

Re:

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Please see below [slashdot.org].

Re:

[Wormsign]

Not without a big upgrade to add a strong magnetic field.

Re:

[K. S. Kyosuke]

It still takes a lot of time to erode an atmosphere. And this is most likely not a first order process; the erosion rate is limited by the incident radiation/particle rate. Plus It's currently leaking something like a few grams per second, despite still having teratonnes of mass. Even if it scaled in proportion with the mass, you'd still be safe for a very, very long time.

Re:

[tlhIngan]

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 :-(

Ignoring basic physics, that would be true. However, no, mars will not lose its atmosphere because the atmosphere is held down by a fundamental force in the universe - gravity. It's the same thing that keeps the Earth's atmosphere from dissipating into space as well, as well as a magnetic field that helps repel the solar wind produced by the sun trying to

Re:

[TheDarkMaster]

I think you misunderstand my concern. I know that the atmosphere is not going anywhere in the short term by exactly the factors you described. What concerned me on the probe data is the long-term. For example, if the water continues decomposing as the probe detected without having something to replace it, then sometime in the future the planet really will not have any more water (ignoring here the possibility of underground ice, as we do no have enough data about this yet). And if in the distant future some

Re:

[Payden K. Pringle]

Unless I'm mistaken, what causes the atmosphere to "leak" so profusely is the lack of a strong magnetic field (which the Earth has due to it's molten iron core).

To me, this means that to terraform Mars, we'd have to have the technology to "restart" Mars' core, a la "The Core", as in the movie. Theoretically, that'd bring the magnetic field back and protect the atmosphere. Then the plant part can start.

That significantly raises the bar on the technology that is required to terraform the planet, so I don't ex

Re:

[CauseBy]

None of the terraforming ideas make any sense without a magnetosphere.

Re:

[steelfood]

Colonizing Mars was really just a pipe dream anyway. The core of Mars is dead (no longer liquid and spinning), so the planet is dead. It makes sense. Trying to terraform is it like trying to bring the dead back to life. In the best case, you'll get Frankenstein's monster. In the worst, nothing will come of it.

Nice Graphics

[KJSwartz]

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.

How does it compare to expected?

[hort_wort]

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... [wikipedia.org]