April 4, 2017

Artist's concept comparing Mars as it is today and as it was 4 billion years ago (Image NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center)

An article published in the journal “Science” describes a research on the atmosphere of the planet Mars that indicates the Sun’s wind and radiation as the principal culprits of the fact that today that atmosphere is so thin. A team led by Bruce Jakosky, principal investigator of NASA’s MAVEN space probe’s mission, examined the measurements of the existing gases estimating for example that 65% of argon present origininally got lost in space. This research confirms the one published in November 2015.