MAVEN captures first images of Mars atmosphere.

             

            NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft, which arrived at Mars last month, has sent back its first images of the Red Planet’s atmosphere as it was battered by a large solar storm. These images are the first of their kind, providing us with information about Mars’ ozone layer, and the tenuous oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen coronas at the edge of Mars’ atmosphere. These coronas can tell us what the conditions on Mars might’ve been like over the last four billion years, detailing how the planet went from being warm and wet  to the cold, dry, dusty sphere that it is today.

           MAVEN, which stands for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, only inserted itself into Martian orbit three weeks ago. NASA hasn’t even finished checking out all of the orbiter’s various instruments and sensors, to see if they survived the 442-million-mile journey from Earth. But when the Sun produces a solar flare and coronal mass ejection (CME) that’s headed straight for Mars — as it did on September 26, just five days after MAVEN’s orbital insertion — you boot up your cameras and take lots of pics first, and ask questions later.

           

              These first images, seen above, show the planet’s coronas of atomic carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen as they escape the Martian atmosphere. I believe the brighter right edge is the edge that’s currently facing the Sun — and presumably, when Mars is bombarded by solar energetic particles (SEPs), more carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen leak out into space. Once upon a time, these atoms would’ve been molecules of water (H2O) or carbon dioxide (CO2), but without an atmosphere they’re free to just bubble out into space.

           Following all of this initial excitement, MAVEN will then go through a couple of weeks of instrument calibration — and then begin its primary science mission in earnest. With MAVEN, NASA hopes to finally determine how Mars — which was probably once warm and wet — lost both its atmosphere and surface water. The most popular hypothesis is that, as Mars’s iron core cooled, its protective magnetic field decayed, allowing energetic solar particles — like those that bombarded the planet last month — to burn away the atmosphere.