Posted on 03/12/2010 12:42:11 PM PST by decimon
Leicester physicists part of team studying impact of solar wind on Mars atmosphere
Space physicists from the University of Leicester are part of an international team that has identified the impact of the Sun on Mars' atmosphere.
Writing in the AGU journal Geophysics Research Letters, the scientists report that Mars is constantly losing part of its atmosphere to space.
The new study shows that pressure from solar wind pulses is a significant contributor to Mars's atmospheric escape.
The researchers analysed solar wind data and satellite observations that track the flux of heavy ions leaving Mars's atmosphere. The authors found that Mars's atmosphere does not drift away at a steady pace; instead, atmospheric escape occurs in bursts.
The researchers related those bursts of atmospheric loss to solar events known as corotating interaction regions (CIRs). CIRs form when regions of fast solar wind encounter slower solar wind, creating a high-pressure pulse. When these CIR pulses pass by Mars, they can drive away particles from Mars's atmosphere.
The authors found that during times when these CIRs occurred, the outflow of atmospheric particles from Mars was about 2.5 times the outflow when these events were not occurring. Furthermore, about one third of the material lost from Mars into space is lost during the impact and passing of CIRs.
The study should help scientists better understand the evolution of Mars's atmosphere.
Professor Mark Lester, Head of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leicester said: "The main reason it happens at Mars and not at Earth is the lack of a magnetic field produced by the planet, which protects the atmosphere at Earth.
"One other aspect of this work is that the observations were made during a very quiet period in the eleven year solar cycle and so we would expect the effect of these and other large scale disturbances to be higher at other times in the solar cycle."
Leicester's role in the study was to analyse the data using ideas that academic researchers had from discussions within the Radio and Space Plasma Physics Research Group.
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Niklas Edberg, a doctoral student at the University of Leicester, who now works at the Swedish Institute for Space Physics (IRF), Uppsala, Sweden, conducted the research with Leicester colleagues Anthony Williams, Mark Lester, Steve Milan, and Stan Cowley of the Department of Physics and Astronomy.
H. Nilsson, S. Barabash and Y. Futaana: Swedish Institute of Space Physics, Kiruna, Sweden and M. Fränz: Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany are co-authors of the paper.
The work at the University of Leicester was part funded by an EU training Network and the Science and Technology Facilities Council.
The data are mainly from the ESA mission,Mars Express, although the study also uses data from a NASA mission called ACE.
ends
Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) paper 10.1029/2009GL041814, 2010 http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2009GL041814
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Magnetic charm ping.
Barsoom needs atmosphere factories now! Give generously.
C'mon Goreacle...speak...where is the "Bush's fault" for this anthropogenic disaster?
The most plausible explanation that I’ve heard, but it isn’t altogether new. So far, Earth is a blessed place being surrounded with a magnetic field to protect it from the solar wind. May it ever be so.
may it ever be so
but, it is weakening, you know
Thousands of years ago Mars’ atmosphere was much denser, so it could withstand the effects of the solar wind, as does Earth’s. But a near miss with another celestial body stripped much of that atmosphere, and we’re seeing the results.
That is based on the theory offered in “Worlds in Collision” by Immanuel Velokovsky, written in about 1950. For science buffs it is a great read, tying together a number of historical events to arrive at a most interesting conclusion.
the scientists report that Mars is constantly losing part of its atmosphere to space
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We are also blessed by our greater gravity. Thus the “escape velocity” for gas particles is lower on Mars than on Earth.
http://www.archive.org/stream/earthupheaval010880mbp/earthupheaval010880mbp_djvu.txt
Immanuel Velikovsky
Earth In Upheaval.
EARTH IN UPHEAVAL is a book about the great
tribulations to which the planet on which we travel
was subjected in prehistorical and historical times. The
pages of this book are transcripts of the testimony of
mute witnesses, the rocks, in the court of celestial
traffic. They testify by their own appearance and by
the encased contents of dead bodies, fossilized skele-
tons. Myriads upon myriads of living creatures came to
life on this ball of rock suspended in nothing and
returned to dust. Many died a natural death, many
were killed in wars between races and species, and
many were entombed alive during great paroxysms of
nature in which land and sea contested in destruction.
Whole tribes of fish that had filled the oceans sud-
denly ceased to exist; of entire species and even genera
of land animals not a single survivor was left.
Yes, and there's that too. And, we have the moon which serves to keep Earth's axis of rotation relatively stable. And then, there's Earth's twenty odd degree axial tilt which gives us the seasons. And, to think, all of these blessings are nothing more than happenstance. (In the minds of some.)
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