Latest news with #Magnetometer
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
NASA spots sputtering for first time, cracks Mars' lost atmosphere mystery
Mars just gave up one of its oldest secrets — and it took a decade, a spacecraft, and a cosmic cannonball to catch it in the act. For the first time, NASA's MAVEN mission has directly observed a process called sputtering, an elusive atmospheric escape mechanism where energetic charged particles from the solar wind slam into the Martian atmosphere, knocking atoms into space. This violent interaction may be a key reason why Mars lost its thick atmosphere and, with it, the ability to sustain liquid water on its surface. The breakthrough marks a major milestone for MAVEN, a mission under NASA's Mars Exploration Program dedicated to uncovering how the Red Planet lost its atmosphere. While scientists had long suspected the process played a role in the Red Planet's atmospheric erosion, they lacked concrete evidence. 'It's like doing a cannonball in a pool,' said Shannon Curry, principal investigator of MAVEN at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder and lead author of the study in a release. 'The cannonball, in this case, is the heavy ions crashing into the atmosphere really fast and splashing neutral atoms and molecules out.' Previous findings—like the imbalance between lighter and heavier argon isotopes in Mars' atmosphere—offered only indirect clues, pointing to sputtering's fingerprints without capturing the act itself. Since lighter isotopes naturally reside higher in the atmosphere, their scarcity compared to heavier ones strongly suggested they had been knocked away into space. And the only known process capable of selectively removing these lighter isotopes is sputtering. 'It is like we found the ashes from a campfire,' said Curry. 'But we wanted to see the actual fire, in this case sputtering, directly.' Now, using data from three instruments aboard MAVEN—the Solar Wind Ion Analyzer, the Magnetometer, and the Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer—researchers have, for the first time, captured sputtering in action. Additionally, the team needed measurements across the dayside and the nightside of the planet at low altitudes, which takes years to observe. By combining data from three of MAVEN's instruments, scientists created the first detailed map linking sputtered argon to incoming solar wind. The map showed argon atoms high in the Martian atmosphere, precisely where energetic particles had slammed into it—clear, real-time evidence of sputtering in action. Even more striking, the process was occurring at a rate four times higher than expected, with activity intensifying during solar storms. This direct observation confirms that sputtering was a major driver of atmospheric loss during Mars' early years, when the young Sun was far more active. 'These results establish sputtering's role in the loss of Mars' atmosphere and in determining the history of water on Mars,' said Curry. The discovery helps fill a major gap in our understanding of Mars' transformation from a once-habitable planet to the cold, dry world we see today. It also provides critical insight into how planets evolve and what it might take for them to remain habitable. The findings have been published this week in Science Advances.
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Tiburon Subsea & Ocean Floor Geophysics Sign MOU to Expand Capabilities of Revolutionary AUV Design
NEW YORK, Jan. 27, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Tiburon Subsea Inc. (TSI) and Ocean Floor Geophysics Inc. (OFG) are excited to announce their professional collaboration for 2025. In 2024, Tiburon Subsea introduced its patented vectored thrust control system JETTE for defense markets and established AUV manufacturers. In 2025, Tiburon is launching an initiative to develop its own revolutionary commercial AUV with its patent-pending technology. As a key part of this initiative, Tiburon announces an agreement to incorporate OFG's Self-Compensating Magnetometer, Hypermag, iCP, and HyperEMF systems for non-contact cathodic protection inspection, AC/DC cable EMF and depth of burial, and UXO survey. "Our respective companies share a goal and vision of creating new subsea survey and inspection capabilities for our clients. We believe that advancing dynamic underwater technologies will propel us into a new era in marine robotics. Consider how satellite networks are the backbone hardware of the earth's science data network; autonomous vehicles are quickly becoming the same backbone needed to open data acquisition on a planet which is 70% water. Renewable energy, climate change remediation, marine fishery protection, weather monitoring, and coastal engineering will all benefit from access to this technology," writes Tiburon Subsea Founder and CEO, Tim Taylor. TSI's revolutionary design offers hydrodynamic efficiency and redundancy and allows autonomous underwater vehicles to operate in all dimensions. Essentially, Tiburon Subsea is offering a dual market product. The JETTE system can provide all AUV manufacturers with vehicles featuring the ability to traverse any environment, hover, scan, stabilize, and carry larger payloads with more power. This new technology solves multiple shortcomings of current vehicles. Ideal uses for the Tiburon fleet will include site exploration, oceanographic research, biodiversity management, defense, wind and wave renewable energy survey and maintenance, export and inter-array cable inspection, hydrographic survey, subsea security, methane leak detection, and coastal health monitoring. Tiburon Subsea is expanding into a platform that will disrupt current industry processes and help its clients overcome barriers to technology. OFG CEO Matthew Kowalczyk states: "I have worked with Tim Taylor on many subsea projects throughout the years and his latest tech innovation will allow us to deploy our systems on a platform with unique capabilities to provide comprehensive data to our clients and the underwater marine community. OFG and Tiburon Subsea share a belief that the future of the ocean economy is digital, autonomous, and resident. That future requires quality data." About OFG OFG provides solutions to address our clients' subsea surveying challenges across a range of markets including the renewables, oil and gas, defense and minerals sectors. OFG brings together expert teams of engineers and geoscientists to design, integrate and operationalize complex sensor systems deployed from AUV, ROV, USV and surface vessels. OFG collects rich multiphysics datasets and interprets these to meet and exceed survey objectives efficiently and safely, with minimal environmental impact. More info on OFG can be found at About Tiburon Subsea Founded by acclaimed ocean explorer Tim Taylor and famed ocean scientist Dr. Sylvia Earle, Tiburon Subsea is building the world's first global autonomous undersea drone and data technology platform. TSI's new commercial AUV will be equipped with the proprietary JETTE thruster system, offering more speed, maneuverability, reliability, and versatility than current defense industry and commercial survey vehicles. Companies interested in access to survey quality AUV systems are encouraged to learn more at For more information contact Christine Dennison - Media Relations: 389205@ or 917-423-1369. View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Tiburon Subsea, Inc.
