Sputtering: How Mars May Have Lost Its Atmosphere

(Before It's News)

Why is Mars cold and dry? While some recent studies hint that early Mars may have never been wet or warm, many scientists think that long ago, Mars once had a denser atmosphere that supported liquid water on the surface. If so, Mars might have had environmental conditions to support microbial life. However, for some reason, most of the Martian atmosphere was lost to space long ago and the thin wispy atmosphere no longer allows water to be stable at the surface. Scientists aren’t sure how or why this happened, but one way a planet can lose its atmosphere is through a process called ‘sputtering.’ In this process, atoms are knocked away from the atmosphere due to impacts from energetic particles.
(…)
Read the rest of Sputtering: How Mars May Have Lost Its Atmosphere (278 words)

© nancy for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments |
Post tags: Mars, Mars MAVEN

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

• 50 Years Ago Today, We Chose to Go to the Moon
• A Cosmic Flying Pencil — with Hair!
• Massive Star Has Extreme Large Magnetic Field
• Alien Life Might be Able to Survive Under Extreme Conditions
• Dark Energy Is Real, Say Astronomers
• Around the world in three ways
• Crowd-Sourcing Exploration and Research, Part III
• Weekend Checks Go Well For Curiosity On Mars
• Second Phase Of ESA’s CAVES Training Program Begins
• Amateur Astronomers Catch Rare Explosion Sighting On Jupiter