Latest news with #ShannonCurry
Yahoo
a day 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.
India Today
2 days ago
- Science
- India Today
Rare discovery on Mars could finally reveal why the planet died
Mars always had water, but then the planet changed and the water disappeared leaving behind a barren dead what could be one of the biggest findings from Mars, Nasa's Mars Atmosphere Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission has detected an elusive atmospheric escape process called could help answer longstanding questions about the history of water loss on Mars. Mars is believed to have lost the water after its magnetic field disappeared exposing the planet to the solar wind and solar storms. As the atmosphere began to erode, liquid water was no longer stable on the surface, so much of it escaped to are interested in finding out how its once thick atmosphere got stripped away. They think sputtering was behind it. Sputtering, a phenomenon where energetic particles from the solar wind crash into Mars' upper atmosphere and knock atoms into space, may have played a central role."It's like doing a cannonball in a pool," said Shannon Curry, principal investigator of MAVEN. "The heavy ions are the cannonballs, and they splash neutral atoms and molecules out of the atmosphere."While indirect evidence of sputtering existed — particularly in the uneven distribution of argon isotopes in the Martian atmosphere — this is the first time scientists have observed the process a trio of MAVEN instruments, including the Solar Wind Ion Analyzer and Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer, the team collected rare data from both the dayside and nightside of the result: a high-resolution map showing argon being ejected from Mars' atmosphere precisely where solar particles collided with it. This sputtering occurred at a rate four times higher than previously thought, and intensified during solar discovery, published this week in Science Advances, confirms sputtering as a major mechanism behind the atmospheric erosion that led to Mars' dramatic climate shift.'These results establish sputtering's role in the loss of Mars' atmosphere and in determining the history of water on Mars,' said Curry. The findings could significantly reshape our understanding of Mars' past — and its potential to have once supported Reel
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
NASA discovers phenomenon that could have led to water loss on Mars
May 29 (UPI) -- NASA scientists have discovered evidence that could help answer questions surrounding the history of water loss on Mars. The new research comes after a decade of exploration by NASA's MAVEN (Mars Atmospheric Volatile Evolution) mission shows evidence of an escape process known as "sputtering," during which atoms are knocked out of the atmosphere by what are known as "charge particles," NASA said in a release. "It's like doing a cannonball in a pool," Shannon Curry, a principal investigator with the MAVEN mission and a co-author of the research report, said. "The cannonball, in this case, is the heavy ions crashing into the atmosphere really fast and splashing neutral atoms and molecules out." Scientists have an abundance of evidence that water existed on the Martian surface billions of years ago, but they have been trying to find out where it went. Research has shown that when Mars lost its magnetic field, its surface was exposed to solar wind storms that allowed the liquid water to escape into space. But that does not explain why the once-thick Martian atmosphere was almost entirely stripped away. Sputtering, the new report says, could help explain it. "It's like we found the ashes from a campfire," Curry continued. "But we wanted to see the actual fire, in this case sputtering, directly. The team used a series of MAVEN tools to measure several atmospheric factors in both daylight and dark at low altitudes to observe the phenomenon, which took years to complete. "The combination of data from these instruments allowed scientists to make a new kind of map of sputtered argon in relation to the solar wind," the NASA release said. "This map revealed the presence of argon at high altitudes in exact locations that the energetic particles crashed into the atmosphere and splashed out argon, showing sputtering in real time." Researchers determined at least one of the causes for the loss of water on the Martian surface, but they were also able to recreate the conditions that may have made the planet inhabitable billions of years ago.
UPI
2 days ago
- Science
- UPI
NASA discovers phenomenon that could have led to water loss on Mars
The surface of Mars as seen by the Pathfinder rover in 1997. Photo courtesy of NASA May 29 (UPI) -- NASA scientists have discovered evidence that could help answer questions surrounding the history of water loss on Mars. The new research comes after a decade of exploration by NASA's MAVEN (Mars Atmospheric Volatile Evolution) mission shows evidence of an escape process known as "sputtering," during which atoms are knocked out of the atmosphere by what are known as "charge particles," NASA said in a release. "It's like doing a cannonball in a pool," Shannon Curry, a principal investigator with the MAVEN mission and a co-author of the research report, said. "The cannonball, in this case, is the heavy ions crashing into the atmosphere really fast and splashing neutral atoms and molecules out." Scientists have an abundance of evidence that water existed on the Martian surface billions of years ago, but they have been trying to find out where it went. Research has shown that when Mars lost its magnetic field, its surface was exposed to solar wind storms that allowed the liquid water to escape into space. But that does not explain why the once-thick Martian atmosphere was almost entirely stripped away. Sputtering, the new report says, could help explain it. "It's like we found the ashes from a campfire," Curry continued. "But we wanted to see the actual fire, in this case sputtering, directly. The team used a series of MAVEN tools to measure several atmospheric factors in both daylight and dark at low altitudes to observe the phenomenon, which took years to complete. "The combination of data from these instruments allowed scientists to make a new kind of map of sputtered argon in relation to the solar wind," the NASA release said. "This map revealed the presence of argon at high altitudes in exact locations that the energetic particles crashed into the atmosphere and splashed out argon, showing sputtering in real time." Researchers determined at least one of the causes for the loss of water on the Martian surface, but they were also able to recreate the conditions that may have made the planet inhabitable billions of years ago.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Scientists Have Clear Evidence of Martian Atmosphere 'Sputtering'
For the first time, scientists have caught a key driver of the ongoing erosion of the atmosphere of Mars in action. It took more than nine years' worth of satellite data, but a team led by planetary scientist Shannon Curry of the University of Colorado Boulder has finally detected unmistakable signs of atmospheric sputtering. This is, the researchers say, a crucial piece of the puzzle of how Mars lost both its atmosphere and its water. "These results provide a substantial step toward observationally establishing sputtering's role in the loss of Mars' atmosphere," the team writes in their paper, "and, hence, in determining the history of water and those implications for habitability over time." Atmospheric sputtering is thought to be one of the dominant mechanisms for atmospheric loss in the early Solar System, when the Sun was brighter and more active. It happens when ions are accelerated by the electric field of the Solar wind into the atmosphere of a body – like Mars – that is unprotected by a global magnetic field. The effect is a little bit like when a meteorite smacks into a planet: energy is transferred to the surrounding neutral medium, kicking it up in a spray. But for sputtering, some of the atmospheric atoms and molecules gain enough energy to achieve escape velocity, and off they go, flung into space on a new adventure. It's difficult to observe this process on Mars. It requires simultaneous observation of the flung neutral atoms, and either the ions that smacked into the atmosphere, or the electric field that accelerated them. It also requires simultaneous dayside and nightside observations of Mars, deep into its atmosphere. The only spacecraft with the equipment and orbital configuration to make these observations is NASA's MAVEN. The researchers carefully pored over the data collected by the spacecraft since it arrived in Mars orbit in September 2014, looking to find simultaneous observations of the solar electric field and an upper atmosphere abundance of argon – one of the sputtered particles, used as a tracer for the phenomenon. They found that, above an altitude of 350 kilometers (217 miles), argon densities vary depending on the orientation of the solar wind electric field, compared to argon densities at lower altitudes that remain consistent. The results showed that lighter isotopes of argon vary, leaving behind an excess of heavy argon – a discrepancy that is best explained by active sputtering. This is supported by observations of a solar storm, the outflows of which arrived at Mars in January 2016. During this time, the evidence of sputtering became significantly more pronounced. Not only does this support the team's finding that argon density variations at high Martian altitudes are the result of sputtering, it demonstrates what conditions may have been like billions of years ago, when the Sun was younger and rowdier, undergoing more frequent storm activity. "We find that atmospheric sputtering today is over four times higher than previous predictions and that a solar storm can substantially increase the sputtered yield," the researchers write. "Our results confirm that sputtering is occurring on present-day Mars and could have been the main pathway for atmospheric escape at Mars during the early epochs of our Solar System when the solar activity and extreme ultraviolet intensities were much higher." The results have been published in Science Advances. Chance X-Ray Discovery Reveals Mystery Object 15,000 Light Years Away SpaceX Starship's Latest Test Ends in Destruction Over Indian Ocean Star Caught Orbiting Inside Another Star in Bizarre First
