Astronomy, Mars Atmosphere | featured news

NASA: Mars missing most of its atmosphere

NASA's Curiosity rover results confirm that Mars has lost most of its atmosphere, on its way to becoming a cold, dry planet. In experimental results reported Monday at a European geoscience meeting in Vienna, Austria, a look at the Martian air by the $2.5 billion rover finds evidence that as much as 90% of the original atmosphere there has dissipated into space over the planet's lifetime. "It was still red, but it means that Mars once was a warmer, wetter world," says rover team scientist Sushil Atreya of the University of Michigan. "It was also a more habitable world, essentially four billion years ago."

 

NASA's Curiosity rover confirms Mars lost atmosphere

NASA's Curiosity rover reports confirmation that Mars has lost at least half of its early atmosphere.

 

Dry ice lake suggests Mars once had a 'Dust Bowl'

Dry ice lake suggests Mars once had a 'Dust Bowl'

Think Mars today is a hostile place? It was worse 600,000 years ago, according to new research that suggests the planet had a dustier, stormier atmosphere. “It was an unpleasant place to hang out,” said lead researcher Roger Phillips of the Southwest Research Institute. He said Mars’ climate was probably a lot like the American Dust Bowl of the 1930s — but a lot worse.

 

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