Astronomy, 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."

 

Space tourism travel comes closer to fruition

Space tourism travel comes closer to fruition

The idea that an ordinary person taking a trip beyond Earth's atmosphere is no longer fantasy. Private companies are soliciting passengers for commercial trips to space.

 

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.

 

'Super-Earth' atmosphere measured

The atmosphere of a relatively nearby extrasolar planet - just three times bigger than Earth - has been measured in a pioneering experiment.

 

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