Billions of years ago , Mars had flowing water , ice-skating rink , and clouds , and then lose most of it . The later sketch fromNASA ’s MAVENMars artificial satellite show that it is still recede water supply , but the “ leak ” is not constant .
The trade has been studying the air of the Red Planet over an entire Martian year , and discovered that the rate of passing vary wildly up to a element of 10 , with solar irradiation and seasonal modification possible campaign of the differences .
“ MAVEN ’s finding bring out what is find in Mars ’ atmosphere now , but over time this type of loss contributed to the spheric change from a wetter environs to the dry satellite we see today , ” say Ali Rahmati , a MAVEN team member at the University of California , Berkeley , in astatement .
The pee loss is gauge by measuring the amount of hydrogen leaving the upper ambience . Sunlight recrudesce water supply vaporisation molecules , constitute oxygen and atomic number 1 . Hydrogen moves to the upper ambience , where it then escapes Mars .
The scientists distrust the Sun ’s action , seasonal variation on the planet , and Mars ’ elliptic orbit play a role in these alteration , although it ’s not clear which is the dominant cistron .
This fluctuating escape had previously been observed by the Hubble Space Telescope and by ESA ’s Mars Express artificial satellite , but MAVEN ’s detections are the first to descend from a uninterrupted trailing campaign .
“ Now that we experience such large changes occur , we opine of H escape from Mars less as a slow and steady leak and more as an occasional period – rising and falling with season and perhaps punctuated by strong bursts , ” added Michael Chaffin , a scientist at the University of Colorado at Boulder .
Chaffin ispresenting the resultsat the joint meeting of the Division for Planetary Sciences and the European Planetary Science Congress in Pasadena , California , this week .
MAVEN is using a suite of instruments to track the minute details of Mars ' aura . The scientists hope that more notice over the next few years will clarify what phenomenon is responsible for Mars ’ water loss .
