maven2mars

Main goal of the mission is to discover what happened to the atmosphere of Mars. How it went from a warm, wet place with the possibility of life to the dry, cold desert of today. So if we verify our hypothesis that the Solar Wind stripped away most of the atmosphere then that will be our most important finding.

We clearly see dry river beds all across the surface. Plus lots of rocks and minerals that only form in the presence of standing water. So there had to be long standing liquid water. To have liquid water, you would have to have a much warmer and thicker atmosphere. But that seems to be long gone.

Earth has a global planetary magnetic field. This makes a magnetosphere which causes the ionized Solar Wind to be mostly diverted around the planet (magnetic fields move charged, or ionized particles). Mars lacks this planetary magnetic field, hence lacks a magnetosphere, and hence is directly impacted by the Solar Wind. Over billions of years we think that Mars' atmosphere might have been eroded away.

Roger, roger.

How'd you get here?