New data from NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) may have just dissolved the pipedream of transforming Mars into a habitable planet.
Solar winds have stripped Mars' atmosphere bare and the planet is currently losing gas, NASA revealed in a news release.
The idea, however outlandish, was simple: if conditions in Mars' atmosphere and on the ground were once favorable for life forms, it can be once again. Through the more-fictional-than-scientific process of terraforming, Mars could be reformed to a habitable planet, Space.com reported.
"Mars appears to have had a thick atmosphere warm enough to support liquid water which is a key ingredient and medium for life as we currently know it," John Grunsfeld, an astronaut and associate administrator for the NASA Science Mission Directorate in Washington, said in the release. "Understanding what happened to the Mars atmosphere will inform our knowledge of the dynamics and evolution of any planetary atmosphere. Learning what can cause changes to a planet's environment from one that could host microbes at the surface to one that doesn't is important to know, and is a key question that is being addressed in NASA's journey to Mars."
Though MAVEN dashed that dream once and for all, it provided important data nonetheless.
"Solar-wind erosion is an important mechanism for atmospheric loss, and was important enough to account for significant change in the Martian climate," Joe Grebowsky, MAVEN project scientist from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., said in the release. "MAVEN also is studying other loss processes - such as loss due to impact of ions or escape of hydrogen atoms - and these will only increase the importance of atmospheric escape."
