NASA NASA to make next Mars announcement today

[DaveC426913]

http://www.iflscience.com/space/nasa-announce-key-findings-fate-martian-atmosphere

I think 'huge' may be a gross overstatement. I think they're going to announce how recently Mars' atmo was thick and how soon it will be gone, and that's about it.

 

[davenn]

uh huh, heard it on the TV this morning before going to work

stripped by the solar wind ... I thought ... well that was a revelation ! ... NOT ...

That has been the primary assumption for some yrs

lack of a signif magnetic field, lower gravity, being the primary helpful factors
towards the solar wind having a stronger effect

Dave

 

[marcus]

Press release 5 November:
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/...ed-of-solar-wind-stripping-martian-atmosphere
The MAVEN mission collected more data about solar wind at Mars allowing them to go into more detail about how 99% of the original atmosphere was stripped. Most of it fairly early on.

The conclusion: more confidence about the scenario that most of Mars water went off into space rather than getting stored as underground ice.

Mars looks increasingly like a comparatively poor prospect for human settlement/space industry.

Ceres, with a thick layer of ice beneath its surface, looks like a better prospect--probably more inhabitable below-ground, with a better supply of industrial raw materials. Lower gravity means people and materials easier and safer to land and take off.

Mars base probably a dead-end--by comparison a waste of time and resources

 

[DaveC426913]

lack of a signif magnetic field, lower gravity, being the primary helpful factors
towards the solar wind having a stronger effect

Dave

They stressed that it was particularly solar storms that did the most damage, disproportionate to their frequency/