The list serve delivered the following clip today:
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Rover’s findings suggest Mars’ atmosphere was lost soon after formation
The inhospitable atmosphere of Mars has been around a long time — about 4 billion years or so, according to data collected by NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover, along with studies of Martian meteorites. Scientists think that the Red Planet lost its atmosphere fairly soon after its formation. “A lot of the atmosphere of Mars might have been lost pretty rapidly,” noted Paul Mahaffy of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, lead author of one of two studies published in the journal Science. Space.com (7/18)
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On the one hand, the Earth’s atmosphere has long been protected by a magnetic field that is continually generated by the movement of an inner molten core. Were the core to cool and the inner motion cease, the Earth’s protective shield would drop and the atmosphere and water on the surface would begin to be stripped away.
So why is it so hard to understand that the non-molten core of the Red Planet goes hand-in-hand with the current lifeless conditions on Mars? And yet NASA spins on hopes of exciting life-supporting data from Mars, only to report the atmosphere has long been inhospitable. While the presence of water and signs of water’s activity on the planet surface are interesting data, the lack of a favorable atmosphere is sufficient to douse the fires of hope for life on Mars.
In a recent presentation on expoplanets, we observed the optimistic assessment of NASA scientists for more tantalizing data from distant solar systems. Yet Mars, so close by, reminds us that it takes a long list of factors to favor life, factors that Earth has in its column … sufficient for life here, but a list that many hopeful prospects will find a probabilistic stretch to acquire.
Are we saying no life nowhere else? Actually, no. But the priorities for finding life elsewhere might be tempered by the unsettling reality that conditions on Earth are undergoing dramatic change. We could focus more on space-based research to focus on Earth, because that IS where we know life certainly does exist!
The irony is in the scientists who want ever more to look outward and request more funds for doing so, when humanity ever more so needs to look back in on itself and what we are doing here. No atmosphere on Mars is an inhospitability worth waiting to explore later, while the atmosphere here is heating up … and we mean HEATING up in a big way!
Director, WindowView.org
