NASA Mission Reveals Speed of Solar Wind Stripping Martian Atmosphere

In case you never watched the live conference....

Artist's Concept of Solar Storm Hitting Mars

Artist's rendering of a solar storm hitting Mars and stripping ions from the planet's upper atmosphere.

NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission has identified the process that appears to have played a key role in the transition of the Martian climate from an early, warm and wet environment that might have supported surface life to the cold, arid planet Mars is today.


 MAVEN data have enabled researchers to determine the rate at which the Martian atmosphere currently is losing gas to space via stripping by the solar wind. The findings reveal that the erosion of Mars' atmosphere increases significantly during solar storms. The scientific results from the mission appear in the Nov. 5 issues of the journals Science and Geophysical Research Letters.


"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," said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator for the NASA Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "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."

MAVEN measurements indicate that the solar wind strips away gas at a rate of about 100 grams (equivalent to roughly 1/4 pound) every second. "Like the theft of a few coins from a cash register every day, the loss becomes significant over time," said Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN principal investigator at the University of Colorado, Boulder. "We've seen that the atmospheric erosion increases significantly during solar storms, so we think the loss rate was much higher billions of years ago when the sun was young and more active."

 NASA -Solar Wind Strips Martian Atmosphere


In addition, a series of dramatic solar storms hit Mars' atmosphere in March 2015, and MAVEN found that the loss was accelerated. The combination of greater loss rates and increased solar storms in the past suggests that loss of atmosphere to space was likely a major process in changing the Martian climate.
The solar wind is a stream of particles, mainly protons and electrons, flowing from the sun's atmosphere at a speed of about one million miles per hour. The magnetic field carried by the solar wind as it flows past Mars can generate an electric field, much as a turbine on Earth can be used to generate electricity. This electric field accelerates electrically charged gas atoms, called ions, in Mars' upper atmosphere and shoots them into space.


MAVEN has been examining how solar wind and ultraviolet light strip gas from of the top of the planet's atmosphere. New results indicate that the loss is experienced in three different regions of the Red Planet: down the "tail," where the solar wind flows behind Mars, above the Martian poles in a "polar plume," and from an extended cloud of gas surrounding Mars. The science team determined that almost 75 percent of the escaping ions come from the tail region, and nearly 25 percent are from the plume region, with just a minor contribution from the extended cloud.

Ancient regions on Mars bear signs of abundant water - such as features resembling valleys carved by rivers and mineral deposits that only form in the presence of liquid water. These features have led scientists to think that billions of years ago, the atmosphere of Mars was much denser and warm enough to form rivers, lakes and perhaps even oceans of liquid water.Recently, researchers using NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter observed the seasonal appearance of hydrated salts indicating briny liquid water on Mars. However, the current Martian atmosphere is far too cold and thin to support long-lived or extensive amounts of liquid water on the planet's surface.

"Solar-wind erosion is an important mechanism for atmospheric loss, and was important enough to account for significant change in the Martian climate," said Joe Grebowsky, MAVEN project scientist from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "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."

The goal of NASA's MAVEN mission, launched to Mars in November 2013, is to determine how much of the planet's atmosphere and water have been lost to space. It is the first such mission devoted to understanding how the sun might have influenced atmospheric changes on the Red Planet. MAVEN has been operating at Mars for just over a year and will complete its primary science mission on Nov. 16.

To view an animation simulating the loss of atmosphere and water on Mars:
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?4370

For more information and images on Mars' lost atmosphere, visit:
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?4393

For more information about NASA's MAVEN mission, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/maven


Dwayne Brown / Laurie Cantillo
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726 / 202-358-1077
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov / laura.l.cantillo@nasa.gov
Nancy Neal-Jones / Bill Steigerwald
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
301-286-0039 / 301-286-5017
nancy.n.jones@nasa.gov / william.a.steigerwald@nasa.gov
Jim Scott
University of Colorado, Boulder
303-492-3114
jim.scott@colorado.edu

Colin Wilson's Alien Dawn....whoa!

 



Colin Wilson wrote, as I'm sure long time AOP blog readers will remember, probably the best book looking at poltergeist phenomena titled...Poltergeist.

I have admired his work because he is not a "jump on board the latest subject" person.  He does a lot of research and is quite knowledgeable  on a number of subjects so you always get a well balanced book. When I saw a book I was a little stumped:  "Colin Wilson wrote a book looking at alien abductions??"

firstly, this is not a new book.  The edition I have is dated 1999.  The blurb reads:

" Alien Dawn describes Colin Wilson's attempt to make sense of a vast body of documented research involving strange and unexplained phenomena, including poltergeists, lake monsters, ancient folklore, time slips, out-of-body experiences, mystical awareness, and psychic travel to other worlds. The result is a vast, complex jigsaw puzzle of encyclopedic dimensions -- the most comprehensive bird's-eye view of the subject ever undertaken, with conclusions that are sure to startle the reader."

This book is in the stack I have to read through but I scanned through it and just hoped that when Wilson concluded that alien abductions were all a modern myth or psychological aberration he did so with more credibility than others have.

I read the last lines of the book:

"And this, I suspect, is the beginning of the change that the UFOs are working on."

I read it again.  Then again. I'm looking at it right now and all 380+ pages are going to be read quicker than they were.  How -or "did"-  Wilson reach this conclusion? What data -cases was he studying? To me this is going to have to be a sooner-rather-than-later read.

I can't wait.

That Braemar, Scotland CE IIIK

Back in early September I posted the item below.  This is an up-date.

I contacted FSR and got this response from Harry (?):

 "Dear Terry, I previously read through the FSR archive relevant to this story but did not find anything on this case as I would have kept it out as something worth looking into. Tarland is your best bet, talking to older people in the area who may have heard something at the time. You would also need to find out what TA regiment it was and where they were billeted. You might be able to get a list of names and message these people on face-book, it would only take hitting one of the colleagues by chance to crack the case. It only takes narrowing down to improve your odds. I do have an entire set of UFO news clippings for Autumn 1958 so you might have luck yet. I'll take a gander tomorrow for you."

That was 24th September and nothing since.

FSR is the source of this case report and it was used as a case by Charles Bowen in The Humanoids.  However, Bowen only quoted FSR as a source and gave absolutely no original source of the report -whether a newspaper item or other.  This was reputedly the international journal of Ufology but like so many Ufologists and publications the most basic information is missing.

The Braemar has been included in many books or online posts as a "genuine" event and FSR is always quoted.

There are many early CE IIIK cases that FSR reported on as genuine, and continued to promote as genuine right up into the 1990s -decades after they knew those cases were proven psychological or hoaxes.

Unless some original source can be located I am going to have to up-date the AE CE IIIK Catalogue entry for this to "Dubious".

Was someone, perhaps, looking to create a UK version of the Flatwoods incident?

************************************************************************************************************************** 

November, 1958, Braemar, Deeside, UFO Landing...and Aliens?

 Back in 1959, when this story first got attention in Flying Saucer Review , vol.5, no.3, May-June 1959, what you see in the image below was it.

This is one of the first such incidents in the UK and yet it was ignored because that is how such reports were treated unless they involved "Venusian space brothers" with messages for Mankind!

I have just emailed a number of Scottish newspapers in the hope that the witnesses can be tracked down because of the historical nature of the incident and to learn more.

If anyone reading this has contact with any local or national newspapers or news services in Scotland then please pass this on.  Thanks!

"Hello.

 It may seem odd that I am writing about an event so far back, however, at the time this incident received only the most basic of reporting (see attached jpeg).

 In fact, it may seem odd at all that anyone should find it of interest, however, as a meddler in astronomy amongst other subjects, it always astonished me that the old flying saucer enthusiasts would take very seriously the idea of interplanetary craft whizzing about our planet but would never seriously consider that “someone” must be flying them.

 The witnesses were, in 1958, teenagers so would now be in their sixties. Police records at that time would have been routinely destroyed every few years.  My former RAF colleagues tell me that the Air Ministry at the time were never involved.  To an historian this is awful.  This would have been one of the first such cases in the United Kingdom at a time when there was no craze to report aliens in every media.

  I would very much like to track down these two men, if still alive, or their families since the incident is said to have affected them so badly and the police were involved it is no doubt an account that has been passed along.  There is no pre-judging here, nor any attempt at ridiculing these witnesses, but it is very important that some form of account/record be made –it is too important an event to just ignore it.

 Anonymity will be strictly maintained though, of course, in any published account pseudonyms would be used.

 I can be contacted via the email given or through my address.

 My thanks in advance.

Terry Hooper-Scharf"

blacktowercg@hotmail.com